


Umbra

by Augustine94



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Force Bond (Star Wars), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi Appreciation (Star Wars), Jedi Culture, Nonbinary Character, Order 66, Post-Order 66, Zabraks (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24049066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Augustine94/pseuds/Augustine94
Summary: Umbra: noun, the innermost and darkest part of shadow resulting from the total obstruction of light by a planetary body in eclipse.Night has fallen on the Republic. Clones open fire, and Jedi die- but not all of them. And not all who live have a great purpose laid out for them as Obi-Wan did. For those who live, what is it to be a Jedi without the Republic?This has been a labor of love of mine for the past decade, and I am excited to finally be posting it. Thematically, this is a story of overcoming trauma, found family, respect of Jedi culture, and everyone is queer. Set in the Legends + Clone Wars continuity. Updates roughly every other week.
Comments: 62
Kudos: 32
Collections: Genuary 2021





	1. Chapter 1

_“This is how twenty-five millennia come to a close. Corruption and treachery have crushed a thousand years of peace. This is not just the end of a republic; night is falling on civilization itself.”_  
-prologue to The Revenge of the Sith novelization by Matthew Stover

  
  


It did not surprise her that there was little comfort to be found in the Force; but it was still reflexive to reach for it, hoping that _this time_ it would be different. Sometimes she reached to the Force for strength. Sometimes it was for guidance. But now, she just wanted to feel the warm serenity that she missed so dearly.

If there was no comfort to be found within the Cosmic Force itself, she was at least surrounded by some of the beings she loved most in the Galaxy; and she could find solace in that. Her Master was a quiet but steadfast presence. His nurturing and compassionate spirit manifested as a soft warm glow, even as exhausted as she knew he was.

Clone trooper Tyro stood nearest to her, and if her Master was the quiet flame of a hearth on a mid-rim world, then Tyro was a firecracker. He would appreciate the comparison she mused, he was their demolitions specialist after all. He was her favorite hand to hand sparring partner and one of her best friends too— but for the same reason that he was so much fun to spar with, his presence within the Force was just a little too boisterous to focus on for her meditation.

No, it was with her Master that she would find the calm to center on. The brightness of the clones around her would be best on the peripheral of her senses. Their light and warmth was a comforting wall between her and the rest of the Galaxy as she focused her attention on her Master.

She would find peace, and then she would dive deeper within the Force to gather strength and turn her focus to the hours ahead of them. A little precognition would help get the night over with sooner.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Cy felt his Padawan anchor on him in the Force, and the accompanying wave of affection he felt for her eased some of the frustration he had been feeling.  


Frustration that— if anything could be said to be consistent about the war— it was the most absolutely ridiculous things that went wrong. Things like not having enough memory space on a datachip for example.

Cy, his Padawan Khlora, and their squad of clone troopers had not even been back on Coruscant for a full planetary rotation before they were sent out on their current mission. It was an ostensibly simple task, they even got to remain planetside, but nevertheless Cy was certain that every single one of them wanted to be somewhere else. Namely asleep.

But the Jedi Council was closing in on the location of the Sith Master assumed to be behind the entire Force-forsaken war. More data was required; and that data needed to be collected with some sensitivity. So, Jedi had been sent out to manually copy records as that was considered safer than digital collection methods that could potentially leave a trail to the Jedi Temple and tip off their quarry. It seemed simple enough. Go to these five locations, download all of their records since the start of the war, and deliver the data cards back to the Temple.

Then finally get some rest.

It had seemed simple, but of course it wasn’t. The security terminals had not been upgraded recently, possibly not even since the clones with him were sequenced, or his Padawan had been born. The outdated hardware meant that the software had not been able to update itself. Because of that, the data chip sent with him could not fully integrate with the terminal and compress the files before saving them. Without being compressed, they wouldn’t all fit, so then the question became if they should come back later with more data storage, or if he should allow Circ and Lysses to convince him to do the irresponsible thing and make off with the entire datacore in question.

He was tired. Force, he was tired, and the two clones were excited by the prospect of getting to take the terminal apart, so he relented. Cy sighed, and took a moment to center himself and take in his surroundings as the two troopers got started.

Circ and Lysses had put their helmets back on for eye protection as they removed the outer shell of the security terminal. Tyro had started to watch the process with interest, and Cy decided to keep an eye on him in case his proclivity for explosives came into play here; this was _not_ the time for that. Mels, their sergeant and resident ARC trooper was on guard as always, keeping watch of the hallway they had come down. Arad stood guard on the other side. Robble and Carson had of course wanted to be on the move, and had taken Pierce and Wes with them for a sweep of the area.

That left only Khlora, sitting against the wall, deep in meditation. Cy supposed that he should tell her to pay attention, but honestly he didn’t blame her. She was exhausted like the rest of them, and she happened to still be a teenager. He worried about Khlora’s generation of Padawans. They had never really known the pure Force as he had as a child. She had been a youngling when the first Sith was part of the horrible battle on Naboo, but the Force had been growing dark even before that. From that battle on it had only gotten worse. Khlora had been sixteen when she had accompanied him to what became a slaughter on Geonosis. One of her best friends had been killed in the arena that day. Her friend was one of the many Padawans, Knights and even Masters who never came home.

A lump rose in Cy’s throat as he looked at her across the room. She was sitting cross-legged in her meditation. A strand of her dark hair had come loose from her braids and ponytail, and had fallen in front of her face. Her head was tilted down and her eyes were closed. To a non-Jedi, she would appear to be sleeping, but Cy knew that she was deep within the Force. She didn’t look good, and she hadn’t for a while. Perhaps it was just the lighting, but her typically warm brown skin looked ashen.

He probably didn’t look so good either. Nearly half a year with little more than military rations didn’t do good things to one’s health. But it was even worse for Khlora, she should still be growing. She was currently shorter and less muscled than a Zabrak her age should be, even for a half Zabrak like herself. They were all in need of some real food.

Hopefully this war would be over soon and they could all go back to their lives, and the clones could have some life outside of warfare. Cy didn’t like fighting. Yes, he enjoyed sparring with his friends and the skirmishes that sometimes came with missions, but war was different. Even if the majority of their enemies were droids, he had seen more sentients die in the past few years than he had before in his entire life as a Jedi. This war had changed the Order. The Council was making decisions that a few years ago they would have abhorred.

Cy fingered the obstinately useless data chip in his pocket at the thought of the Jedi Council. He didn’t think that they were at fault in the grand scheme of things, but— 

In front of him, Circ and Lysses abruptly went stiff— as if they were about to start seizing. Cy spun as he heard Khlora's lightsaber ignite behind him, reflexively igniting his own lightsaber as well. She was wide-eyed, obviously disturbed by something she felt in the Force. And _oh,_ he felt it now too, a deeply cold undercurrent that threatened to drag him— 

The frigid feeling within the Force was met with the searing heat of a blaster bolt flying past his cheek.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Khlora didn’t know what was happening. But as she deflected blaster bolts coming from her friends, she made sure the shots all hit the walls rather than them, even if they were shooting at her. This couldn’t be happening, this wasn’t them, _they wouldn’t do this!_ Yet, it didn’t matter. She and her Master just had to get out of there. Cy was keeping Arad busy, so Khlora took that moment to slip past him into the hall. Then they ran.

Cy sliced open the door to a turbolift and they both jumped into the void, using the Force to help them leap up the shaft. They only had a few seconds before the clones would catch up, so Khlora cut a hole a few levels higher and scrambled through. She could hear the blasterfire start ricocheting through the shaft just as her Master crawled across the threshold. He took a moment to reach for her shoulder, silently asking if she was alright.

“I’m fine,” she answered, “let’s move.”

They ran again, making their way towards an exit when the familiar pounding of boots caught up with them. _Blast!_ It was the other four who had gone out scouting: Carson, Robble, Pierce, and Wes. Mels must have called over their position. Reaching out with the Force, Khlora could tell that the other five were rapidly approaching from the opposite direction. She and her Master were about to get caught in the middle.

He seemed to realize it as well. He gave her the hand signal to cover him, and she fell into position at his flank as the four clones opened fire. Behind her, she heard her Master’s saber plunge into something, and a wave of intense heat hit her. She quickly pulled the Force around herself as a shield against it. His saber swung through the air again, slicing through a water pipe. Evaporation occurred almost instantly as the liquid came in contact with the intense thermal energy of what must have been an open power generator. The thick haze was scalding, but with their lightsabers now extinguished, the clones were shooting blind. Cy was reaching out to her through the Force, and she had to concentrate to maintain the barrier she had created around herself while navigating to him.

Pain flared across their training bond, but disappeared as quickly as it had come. Her Master had assumedly clamped down on it. Fear raced through her. If he had been shot... or maybe he had only slipped in shielding himself from the scalding vapor. He must be relatively okay if he was expending the effort to shield her from the pain. Unfortunately that also shielded her from being able to find him as easily, and the steam seemed to be getting thicker. She could tell he was close, but as to exactly where…

A hand grabbed her arm. Khlora whirled around, ready to reignite her saber, but it was Cy. Relief flooded through her until she saw the scorched patch on his shoulder. It looked bad, and Khlora could see the pain in her Master’s posture. 

They ran. Cy seemed to be holding together, but it might not last. His hand grabbed onto hers, and they slipped away through the expanding cloud.

They had made several turns through the maze of the storage complex when her Master decided they had put enough distance between themselves and the clones, and cut through an exterior wall. They dropped down to street level, and moved away from the building at the quickest pace possible that did not look suspicious.

The streets of Coruscant seemed no different than usual, but something in the Force felt off. She didn’t even have to consciously draw on it to feel a deep, sinking dread. Khlora couldn’t focus on the source of that very well, her mind was still reeling from the fact that she had just been shot at by her friends. Her friends who she had been laughing and wrestling with just last night- happy to be returning to Coruscant, to be returning home. Why would they turn their weapons on her?

The click of Tyro’s blaster as he brought it level to point at her was etched in her mind, replaying over and over again. The lense of his helmet always looked dark, but something about it had felt like there was nothing but inky blackness underneath that time. 

The sound of their comlinks activating shook her from her thoughts and the blind autopilot of following her Master. It wasn’t even a holomessage, just a tone pattern: the emergency signal to return to the Temple. For a moment, Cy and Khlora just stared at each other.

“This feels wrong,” Cy said finally, breaking the silence.

Khlora nodded, and stretched out with the Force. She felt the same. The Force was screaming, telling her to get as far away as possible.

“Where _should_ we go?” she asked.

Cy looked distant for a moment, and she knew that he too was reaching to the Force for guidance. Then he blinked rapidly.

“I don’t know,” his voice was hoarse, as if holding back tears unrelated to his injury. “I feel death all around us, especially at the Temple.”

“But it feels like we shouldn’t go back.”

“No,” he agreed, “I don’t think there’s anything we could do there now. We just need to hunker down somewhere while this blows over, and then find other survivors to regroup with.”

_Survivors._ Khlora felt a shiver go through her. Whatever was happening, this was far from a freak incident with their own clone troopers. They were not, or at least Cy was not, unscathed but they were lucky to have escaped at all.

“Master?” She looked at the charred patch on the shoulder of his tunic. “How bad is that?”

Cy looked down at his shoulder as well. “It hurts, but it was just a graze. I think it looks worse than it is. Nothing a bacta patch and a healing trance won’t fix once we find somewhere safe.”

Khlora bit her lip. He usually did not _horribly_ understate his injuries to prevent her from worrying, but...

Cy’s voice broke back into her thoughts. “We should remove the power packs from our comlinks. I don’t think we want anyone tracking us.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


Cy really didn’t know where they should go, so he let the Force guide him. He was doing his best to breathe through and manage the pain in his shoulder. He’d had worse, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. Nevertheless, he needed to focus in the moment. They were moving away from where they had been attacked, and away from the Temple, and that seemed like a good place to be headed. The industrial district melted into the commercial district. Soon they were entering Coco Town, and Cy had an idea. He had been thinking about all of them getting food before heading back to the Temple and GAR barracks, and while that wasn’t what they were doing now, they might as well have the same destination.

To his surprise, when they arrived in the back alley, Dexter Jettster opened the door as if he had been expecting them.

“Get in here,” he hissed, his eyes darting wildly up and down the street. “You weren’t followed, were you?”

“Not that we know of,” Cy said.

“C’mon, get in here then before they see you.” Dex opened the door wider and pulled Khlora in by the arm. He reached for Cy as well, but stopped as his eyes flicked to the burn on Cy’s shoulder. Instead he simply motioned with two of his other hands. “Follow me.”

“Dex, do you know what’s going on?” Cy asked as they moved through the storage area in the back of the kitchen.

“You don’t know?” Surprise played across Dex’s enormous features.

“No,” Cy forced a smile, “that’s why we came to you, you’re always a great source for—”

Dex interrupted him with a shushing noise, and they heard the sound of boots marching down the street.

“That’s likely more clones. Quickly, into the supply room,” Dex muttered.

Dex shuffled them down the hallway to a large durasteel door. Without a word he tapped in the security code and it swung open.

“I never thought I’d have to use this,” he grunted. “Whoever built this place must’ve used it for smuggling. Never thought I’d be using it to hide Jedi.”

“Dex, what’s—" Khlora started.

“Not now. Stay in here and I’ll come get you when the clones are gone.” Dex put his four meaty arms against a cabinet. With a mighty shove it swung outward to reveal a small room. “I’ll be back. I’m sorry. Just stay quiet in here.” 

He gave each of their shoulders a gentle squeeze with one arm, and a shove with another, pushing them into the hidden room.

With that, the door swung shut behind them. There was a grating sound as he pulled something in front of it, and his heavy footfalls grew farther away. Cy and Khlora looked at each other, confused, and neither really wanting to admit what they thought was going on.

Cy let out a low hiss as a throb of pain got the better of him. Time for bacta. He dug into one of his belt pouches with his good arm.

“Master, let me help,” Khlora said, reaching for her own belt.

Alright. His head was starting to spin as the adrenaline of their escape wore off. Cy sat on a crate and let his Padawan tend to him.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Her Master had been looking a little unstable on his feet, but he began to perk up not long after she applied a bacta patch. He was right. It was a relatively minor injury, but in their current situation any injury could become a major problem. The bacta could fix the surface injury, which was the majority of it. Cy could help encourage healing of the deeper effects of the burn with a few rounds of a healing trance.

The pain was receding from his face. He opened his eyes and looked to her.

“Back in the warehouse, you felt something through the Force while you were meditating, what was it?” Cy asked.

“Something unsettling, something cold,” Khlora shrugged, “the usual for these past few months.”

Cy’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Khlora wished she had a better answer for him, but that’s really all there was. That’s all there had been for quite a while. 

She was more in tune with the Unifying Force than he was, and they usually balanced each other out as he was stronger in the Living Force. He trusted her perceptions on things related to the Unifying Force, and she trusted him on things relating to the Living Force. But in situations like this she wished that one of them had more skill in each other’s subject. 

Regardless of each Jedi’s innate disposition to either aspect of the Force, skills from both were taught. However, unless a Jedi was very gifted, it was unusual for them to be well accomplished in skills from both areas. Neither she nor her Master fell into the category of ‘very strong in the Force,’ both were about average. They had to work hard to master the skills that they had, and many aspects of the Force still remained unreachable.

With more questions than answers, and fatigue and hunger setting in, Cy slipped into a healing trance, and Khlora decided that she too should rest and meditate, hoping for some answers. She found none. 

She had thought the Force was clouded before, but now it was even worse. All she could feel was the cold of the dark side. Whatever had happened had been very violent, very evil, and the Sith were most definitely involved somehow. That was a bad sign. Throughout the war, the balance between light and dark had fluctuated greatly, but now almost all she could sense was the dark. Reaching into the Force was almost painful, for all she felt there was fear and pain. And rage, horrible rage. She couldn’t tell who was experiencing it, or whom it was directed at, but it was there, burning like a cold sun. 

Finding no answers in the Unifying Force, she reached out with the Living Force instead. There she did not find the rage she had sensed before, but found it replaced by the overwhelming reek of death. Unsettled, she emerged from her meditation.

Cy followed shortly after; and he looked slightly sick again. Khlora could guess why. If she’d been overwhelmed by the Living Force, it would have only been worse for him, likely making any healing more difficult.

“Anything?” He asked.

“Nothing good,” she muttered.

Cy nodded. “The Force is full of death. I think we may have just lost the war.”

Khlora hadn’t thought of that. Even where they had been out on the Outer Rim, the war had been going better recently, and upon returning to Coruscant they heard the news of the death of Count Dooku. Everyone had expected the war to end soon, and for it to end in their favor. The Separatists and the Sith winning now seemed unthinkable. What would the galaxy even be without the Republic? She knew of Sith Empires that had existed long in the galaxy’s past, and those had always been cruel and miserable times for the galaxy. She hoped that wasn’t what was about to happen.

But the Force seemed to be whispering to her that it was.

  
  


* * *

  
  


A little after midnight, the store room door slid open and a haggard looking Dex stomped in. Cy and Khlora rose to their feet, ready to finally get some answers. But Dex just shuffled around and sighed unhappily.

“How much do you know?” He asked finally.

“Not much,” Cy said, “We were attacked by our clone troopers and can guess that something terrible has happened, but we don’t know any details. Was there another Separatist attack on Coruscant?”

“I wish,” Dex grumbled. “I think you lot would have been able to take care of that. No, the Holonet is reporting that the Jedi tried to overthrow the Chancellor and take over the Republic.”

Dex held up his four hands as Cy and Khlora both began to protest. “I know,” he said, “It’s a load of bantha poodoo, but in the meantime all Jedi have been classified as traitors and marked for death. The fire at the Temple seems to—”

“Fire at the Temple?” they both gasped. 

Dex tilted his head, and there was pity in his eyes. “Seems to have started when a legion of clone troopers marched on the Temple to kill any of the Jedi within.”

Cy’s heart sank. Khlora just stared at Dex with her mouth hanging open. 

That’s what Cy had felt in the Force. It must have been a massacre in the Temple. Most of the Jedi there were either too injured, sick, or elderly to fight. And the younglings, oh the younglings. They couldn’t have been killed too. Even if somehow the clones had been convinced that the Jedi were all traitors, they wouldn’t have killed younglings. 

As much as you could generalize for millions of beings, that just wasn’t in their character. The majority of them seemed to have a soft spot for sentient younglings of any species. And for Wes at least, non-sentient ones as well. He had really wanted to take that tooka kitten with him that they had found on Dantooine. But Wes had shot at Khlora. And Cy. There had to be more to it, things just weren’t adding up. He felt nauseous at the pressing thought of all that had happened in the last few hours. Cy heard Khlora’s breath hitch, and pulled her close as her tears finally broke free.

“I’m sorry,” Dex said hollowly. “I’ll leave you space to grieve. You’re safe here for now, and I’m working with someone to move you somewhere safer soon.” He moved towards the door and opened his mouth again to say something, but thought better of it and closed the door.

The durasteel slammed shut, and Cy wrapped his uninjured arm more tightly around his Padawan. Tears leaked from his eyes too, but even then he knew that it hadn’t fully resonated with him yet. Cy took a breath. One thing he could be grateful for was that both of them were alive. He had Khlora, but there was nothing he could do to comfort her, or himself for that matter. He had no Masterly wisdom for this circumstance. The entire galaxy had changed within seconds, and there was nothing they could have done. They still didn’t even really know what was happening.

Cy realized that almost everyone he knew must be dead now. Some must have escaped as he and Khlora had, but with the amount of death he felt in the Force it couldn’t have been many. His heart ached for Raen. He didn’t think they were dead, he would have felt that, but any other friends? There was no way of knowing now. The Force was too clouded for him to distinguish anyone’s presence who was not in his immediate vicinity. There was absolutely nothing he could do for anyone but himself and his Padawan.

They eventually moved to sit on the crates, Khlora leaning her head on his good shoulder. They said nothing. There was nothing either of them could think to say. Everything was simply gone.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Dex returned again several hours later. He brought food. Neither of them were hungry, but it was a nice gesture. Dex’s entire demeanor was gentle. He explained that the connections in the Coruscant underworld that they so often used for mission intel would help him smuggle them to safety in the Coruscant undercity. Khlora listened and processed the necessary information, but she felt too numb to say much, or question the specifics on where they were going. The undercity would be a good place to hide, and she trusted Dex to get them there safely. She found that she didn’t really care about the details.

Dex said everything was in place to move them to a safer location. The plan was to smuggle them out in empty shipping containers. It should work, Khlora thought. She doubted that anyone was checking for rogue Jedi in every box of produce moving through Coruscant. She still couldn’t believe that the clones had shot at her, or were hunting Jedi at all. Nothing made sense.

Dex left them with a rucksack and a change of clothes that mostly looked like they would fit. He said he was going to put their Jedi robes in the kitchen’s incinerator to hide any potentially damning evidence. Khlora knew that she shouldn’t have attachment to something as silly as clothing, but if what he said was true and the Jedi had all but been wiped out... it just felt wrong to burn her robes when it was one of the few things she had left. And there was the symbolism of it— Jedi cremated their dead. With all that had just happened, burning something that was so emblematic of their Order only made that death more real. Khlora pushed that thought away; she needed to focus on what was in front of her at this moment. 

She would be keeping her lightsaber of course, and her boots, trousers, and undertunic were probably safe to keep. It was really just her robe, belt, outertunic, and associated tabards that were distinctively Jedi. Those were all deeply personal to her though. A Jedi didn’t own much, but one’s clothing was something that belonged to you alone, something personalized to each Jedi. It had taken a few years of missions for her to really figure out exactly what she wanted to keep on her belt and what needed to go in her belt pouches. She’d had this particular outertunic for a few years, so the linen was soft and perfectly broken in. Her robe had been a birthday gift several years ago from Master Cy. She was always cold— blame her Iridonian desert dwelling heritage for that— and Cy had gone to the textile district of Coruscant to buy an expensive thermal-weave fabric that he brought to the garment droids at the Temple to make her robe from. It looked nearly identical to the standard fabric for Jedi robes, but it was much warmer, and she appreciated that greatly. She had nearly outgrown it, and if she had grown any taller she had been planning to pass it to another Zabrak Padawan a few years younger than her to enjoy its warmth. Her stomach dropped a little with the realization that that Padawan, Javi, was probably dead now.

Dex had brought them both new tunics that were a single solid piece rather than ones that wrapped like their Jedi tunics. Luckily, hers was loose enough that she could shimmy it on over her undertunic. Khlora looked towards her Master, wondering if he would need help with an overhead garment with his injury. He was moving gingerly, but seemed to be doing alright. She noticed that he too was keeping his undertunic and felt a little less silly. Maybe it was only for the practicality of not throwing something out when they had so little, or maybe he was reluctant to let it go for sentimental purposes as well. 

She dumped the contents of her belt pouches into the rucksack, and shoved her lightsaber into the crossing fold of her undertunic. Khlora cinched the thinner and much less useful looking belt around her waist with a frown. Examining her old belt, she debated keeping her saber belt-clip. There would probably not be a time in the near future where she could carry her lightsaber openly; but she had a feeling she might find another use for it, and she certainly was unlikely to come across anything that clipped to her lightsaber again. Mind made up, she pulled the clip off of her belt, and set the rest aside. She briefly examined her belt pouches, but all of them looked too distinctly Jedi.

Khlora gathered up her discarded garments to put them beside where Cy had neatly folded his own. She picked up her robe to fold it and couldn’t help but run her hands down its length one last time. She wanted to remember what it felt like.

She had an idea, it was rather silly, but—

Cy startled when Khlora ignited her lightsaber. She cut a piece of the fabric from the sleeve of her robe, and slipped it into the pocket of her trousers. She deactivated her lightsaber and met Cy’s eyes steadily, unsure if she would see disapproval there. He said nothing, and his eyes just looked sad. Khlora folded her robe, as best as a voluminous Jedi robe _could_ be folded, and gathered everything to set them all next to her Master’s.

“Kep, we need to remove your braid.”

_Oh._ Of course. Her eyes stung, but she didn’t want to cry again and forced the tears down.

“Come here,” Cy said, patting the crate next to him.

Khlora moved across the small room, and sat beside him. Cy reached out a slightly shaky hand and briefly cupped her cheek.

“I’m sorry.” His voice broke. “I’m sorry that I’m not cutting this at your knighting ceremony.”

Khlora could only nod, and try to suppress the lump in her throat. She was sorry too.

“Do you want me to help you undo the ties? I remember how difficult that is without a mirror.”

Khlora nodded again, and Cy scooted closer to her and went to work.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, “I know this is all wrong.”

Khlora stared at the wall, trying to figure out how to express the mess of emotions that roiled within her. She took a breath.

“Even with everything terrible that has happened,” she said finally, “I’m grateful that we both survived. I would be a mess without you right now.”

Cy hummed, still teasing the tight wrap out of her hair.

“As would I if that situation were reversed. While it is said that we should not be sad for those who pass on into the Force, I’ve never found that adage applicable for when life is taken before it’s time. So many have died this night.”

His voice sounded shaky on that last sentence. Khlora was again glad that her strength lay in the Unifying Force. As overpowering as the stench of death was whenever she slightly opened herself to the Living Force, she knew it was much worse for him.

Finished unbraiding, Cy gently dropped the bands in Khlora’s hand. Blue for mechanics, and yellow for combat. She had been working towards red for piloting too, but now—

There was another knock on the door before Dex’s imposing frame appeared in the doorway.

“ID chips,” he explained, holding them up. “Hot off the press.”

The two pocketed the chips, and Cy hoisted the rucksack. Dex nodded.

“Time to go then. May the Force be with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been a long time coming, and I hope that you enjoy these characters and story as much as I do. Please comment!
> 
> If you want to talk to me on Tumblr I have a newly started side blog for this fic, @starwarsumbra. Character art will be posted there soon!
> 
> Also, thank you to my dear friends, @thecrowmaiden my beta reader/editor, and @earlgreyhot who supported me early on and first drew Khlora and Cy for me. Thank you both! <3


	2. Chapter 2

Food storage crates were not Cy’s least favorite way to travel, but they were high on the list. He was glad he had elected to put the rucksack in with Khlora. His original reasoning was that if they were separated, he wanted her to have the supplies- but with his long legs he would have regretted the further cramping the bag would have caused in his box.

After taking the opportunity for further time in a healing trance to do as much as he could for his burnt shoulder, Cy was eventually left with nothing but the close walls of this crate and his own thoughts for company. It was the first time he had been alone since he'd heard a shot ring out from a DC-15S blaster.

There was an overwhelming feeling of numbness that came with the realization that almost everything you had ever loved and worked for had been destroyed. The war had already brought so much pain, but previously it had been pain that he could do something to rectify. Back then he could fight against the things that caused the Galaxy harm, but there was nothing he could do now.

Betrayal was a funny thing in that, almost by definition, it caught one by surprise. But paradoxically, it was also expected by the small part of oneself that one was unable to truly lie to. 

There had been signs of their Republic crumbling for years now; but his love for what the Republic had once stood for had given him a blind spot of optimism that it would persevere. That the war would end in a manner that democracy could put the pieces back together when it was through. It wasn't to be, however. The rot had started, and been allowed to grow and fester unchecked. It sank deep down into the duracrete of Coruscant's endless cityscape, and ate its way back out to the surface leaving utter destruction in its wake.

And now that destruction was all he could see, all he could feel, and all he could expect in the months and years to come. Not wanting to be disrupted, the fortunate beings of the Galaxy who could afford to would simply swallow the lie and go on unhindered in their lives while the lives of so many others burned around them.

A sudden jolt to a stop, and the predetermined pattern of knocks on the crate side shook him out of his thoughts- and let him know that they were at their intermediate destination. Steadying himself, Cy took a deep breath. He could sort out his feelings later. Right now he needed to be Khlora’s Master, so that was what he would be.

* * *

The walk from the warehouse where they had exited the crates was only a few blocks, but Khlora’s hearts had been racing the entire time. Even with the steady presence of her Master by her side, the sheer amount of unknowns made this scarier than facing down a mob of battle droids. Droids were simple. You cut them, they fell. You protected the clones with you from their blasterfire and- No. Thinking about the clones was too hard right now. Again, Tyro raising his blaster at her played in her mind. He was one of her best friends, how could he?

Cy placed a hand on her shoulder and brought her back to the present moment. They were at the building they would be calling home for the next… whenever. A short turbolift ride later put them at the door of the apartment that they would be waiting this out in. It was smaller than their shared quarters at the Temple, and darker and dingy too. There was no window. Probably for the better if they were fugitives now. It certainly was not the worst place they had stayed, but she longed for _home_ , as impossible as that was.

The sudden dull silence that came with reaching their destination seemed to make the events of the past twelve hours more real. The Republic had fallen. The Jedi Order had been destroyed. The Sith had won. 

Khlora felt like she should feel something other than numbness, but she didn’t. If she was honest with herself, it was probably not ‘conscious praxis’ of Jedi detachment. It was more likely that this was denial of grief. She had been taught that she should see one of the Temple Mind Healers if she experienced it, and the idea was inappropriately hilarious due to the circumstances. The Temple had burned, and the Healers within it were likely all dead. 

Cy seemed just as numb as she felt. Lacking anything else to do, she complied when he motioned her over to the couch in the common area of the apartment, where they sat cross-legged facing each other.

“Are you all right?” He asked.

Khlora laughed; that also seemed utterly absurd.

“Sorry,” Cy amended, “stupid question. I meant physically.”

“No injuries,” she replied. “Is your shoulder feeling better?”

Cy nodded woodenly. Khlora sighed. This conversation was strained. What was there to say? There were no words for what had happened. Seeming to have reached the same conclusion, Cy held out an arm, offering her space closer to him. Khlora gladly accepted and scooched over, burying her face in his uninjured shoulder. The two of them had always been close- their relationship was one of the more familial ones for Master and Padawan teams- and for that she was glad. Khlora silently thanked the Force again that they had both survived. 

That line of thought led her to another: Raen. Her Master’s _ashla_ , his Force bonded partner. An ashla relationship barely skirted the Order’s non-attachment rules. It was only really accepted because it was not romantic in nature, and there was such a rich history of it in Jedi tradition. Ashla partners could accomplish more than was possible between Jedi who were simply friends; their connection was deep and rooted in the Force itself, nearly unbreakable. Cy could usually figure out roughly where Raen was in the galaxy and the general status of their current health or mood. Basic emotions could easily be communicated, and full telepathy was possible if both were concentrating on it. 

But Cy hadn’t said anything about Raen in the past few hours, which Khlora took as a bad sign. Last she’d heard, Raen was stationed off Coruscant, doing their duty as a Jedi Healer in a refugee camp mid-rim. They shouldn’t have been very near to any clone troopers, which would have increased their chances of survival.

Khlora pulled out of her Master’s embrace.

“Have you been able to contact Master Raen?”

Cy’s mouth thinned.

“I can tell that they’ve drawn inward and are muting their presence in the Force, same as we are. So they are definitely aware of what has happened. They seem unharmed, but with both of us drawing back from the Force I can’t get very much from them.”

That was good news at least. Whatever had happened, whatever was happening, Khlora felt better knowing that Raen was still alive.

“You don’t think you would be able to locate them?”

“Not right now. Maybe later when we get a better idea of what’s going on, and can determine that it is safe to not be so indrawn.” He paused. “Speaking of which, are you up for seeing what the Holonet is reporting?”

Khlora wasn’t sure that she was, but she knew that his suggestion was a good one. She nodded her consent, and slid back closer to her Master as he placed his arm around her shoulder. They weren’t usually quite this touchy with each other, but Khlora was glad for the comfort. Cy flicked on the screen and the display burst into light with a garish image of the Chancellor’s high Senate office. Thoroughly destroyed and occupied by robed corpses marred by burns. Burns that appeared to have come from a lightsaber rather than blasterfire. The inappropriately excited reporter was describing a foiled Jedi coup, and Khlora’s breath caught as the camera panned to show each body in turn. Master Tiin she did not know well, but the other two she did. Master Kit Fisto was so gregarious that there was no one in the Temple whose day had not been brightened by his grin at some point. His head was on the Chancellor’s desk, his body below. Blood dripped down over the desk, and Khlora felt bile rise in her throat.

Cy squeezed her tighter as the camera focused on the final body: Master Agen Kolar. Being one of the higher ranking Zabrak Jedi in the Temple, he was one of the leaders of their cultural group that Khlora had attended for as long as she could remember. Khlora sat stunned, looking at his lifeless form. It was hard to take it all in. Cy turned off the screen.

“I don’t think we’re ready for that quite yet.”

Khlora just blinked, not able to even tell what she was feeling.

“Khlora.”

There was a hard lump in her throat. Cy was doing his best to comfort her, but she just felt numb. He stroked her hair. “You should probably get some sleep, i’kep,”

Khlora let out a sort of sniffle laugh. “Even now that the adrenaline is wearing off, I don’t think I’ll be sleeping for a while.”

“You should try.” Cy pulled away from her, frowning a little. “I’ll stay awake and meditate for a while. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble, but just in case.”

Khlora knew he was right. They had been exhausted before everything had happened, and now-

“I’m afraid if I fall asleep I’ll just see...” she trailed off.

“You’re much more likely to see all of this in dreams than I am, yes,” Cy agreed. “Do you want me to help?”

They didn’t do it often. Having someone use the Force to put you to sleep was not without its risks of dependency over time, and was generally considered improper use of the Force. But, during wartime there had been instances for both of them where it was the only way that they were going to get any peaceful sleep after what they had seen, or with whatever disturbance there was in the Force. Khlora nodded, and seconds after his fingers touched her forehead her eyes grew heavy, and she let herself slump down into a comfortable position on the couch they both occupied. She felt Cy pulling a blanket over her, and then, sleep.

* * *

Khlora wasn’t sure how long she had slept when a knock at their door awoke her. She had a split second of confusion when she opened her eyes to the unfamiliar surroundings, but it all came back to her soon enough. Unfortunately.

She could feel anxiety radiating off of her Master as he stood by the door, determining if he should open it. He must have decided that it was safe, that this was the operative that Dex had said he would be sending them, because a moment later Cy hit the button for the door.

A sleazy looking Rodian holding a thermal bag stood there, but she knew that in this case appearances were very likely deceiving.

“I’m here to deliver your meal. Trandoshian curry, Karkan ribene, and fried root paste?”

It was the predetermined code phrase, but Khlora still wrinkled her nose at the thought of Trandoshian curry. It shouldn’t even be qualified as curry in her mind, it was just—wrong. She hoped that they had actually brought Karkan ribenes though, those were good.

“I do actually have lunch for you,” The Rodian said as if hearing Khlora as the door slid shut behind her. “Dex told me to make sure you two eat.”

“He has our thanks.” Cy dipped his head. “For everything.”

“He has the thanks of many, myself included. He has a way with second chances.” The Rodian smiled. “I am Veloo.”

“Cy,” her Master said, shaking Veloo’s hand. “And this is my apprentice Khlora.”

Veloo acknowledged her with a nod. “I’m afraid I don’t have all that much for you,” she said. “Things are still an absolute mess, and security getting off world is too tight right now to even think about moving you.”

“But that is the plan eventually, yes?” Cy asked.

“Yes,” Veloo confirmed. “As soon as we can, you’ll be on a transport as ‘refugees,’ and that’s not even technically a lie.”

“I wouldn’t split hairs about it even if it was.” Cy made an attempt at a smile. “Do you have any other information?”

“Unfortunately I don’t.” Veloo’s star filled eyes looked downcast. “I don’t have anything for you other than a request for you to stay put here. There is chaos in the streets, but as of now no one is going from door to door looking for fugitives. You’re in the best possible place right now.”

Khlora understood the reality of the situation, she did, but she steamed a little at the thought of sitting and doing nothing.

“This apartment is well stocked for you to live comfortably here for a while,” Veloo continued. “Dex has several places like this for emergencies.”

A communicator beeped on the Rodian’s hip.

“I should go,” she said. “I’m sorry I don’t have any better news for you. Someone will be in contact as soon as the situation changes.” She gave them a sad smile. “May the Force be with you.” 

And then she was gone.

Khlora looked to her Master.

Cy just sighed. “I know you hate just sitting here. I do too. Let’s just eat this before it gets cold.”

Khlora forced a smile. “Alright, but you’re eating the Trandoshian curry.”

“Let’s hope they forgot to pack that bit.”

* * *

Cy hadn’t been especially hungry, but it had been a good idea to eat. He felt marginally better. Khlora had insisted that it was his turn to rest, and she was right.

However, he was going to be a ‘do as I say, not as I do,’ Master for the moment and not take either her, or his own, advice of getting some sleep. He wanted to get a better idea of how Raen was. Worry for them was a deep pain in his gut.

Cy sat cross legged on the bed and centered himself. The usual ease he had in finding Raen in the Force was escaping him in a way it never had before. 

No matter- he was determined to make contact with them.

But after a few minutes, frustration broke his calm center. It was time for a new tactic. Cy slipped the lightsaber from inside the loose folds of his tunic and twisted open the hull with the Force. The intricate pieces of his saber all floated before him, delicate and glinting. He further separated the two crystals: the main one, and the smaller focusing crystal. For a moment he had the two crystals orbit around each other like the two moons of Tython, Ashla and Bogan, that his bond with Raen was named for.

Catching the smaller shard in his hand, he turned it over in his fingers. This was not a crystal that he had taken from the caves of Ilum for himself. He and Raen had decided to trade focusing crystals with each other early in their apprenticeship, and they had never traded back. It just felt right to have a piece of them with him all of the time.

And now, maybe the crystal’s original connection to Raen would help him find them. Cy floated the pieces of his lightsaber back together, sans the focusing crystal that he kept in his hand. Then he settled himself, and reached out with the Force again.

A memory surfaced, and he let it flow.  


-

  


_He remembered their days together as Senior Padawans, when Raen had begun formal training as a healer. Even as younglings they had both been strongly attuned to the Living Force, something Cy suspected had been part of what brought them together in the first place. Over time Raen’s gifts blossomed into one of the rarest talents for a Jedi: healing. Already paired with a Jedi Master for several years, and not wanting to leave her, Raen would learn healing arts when they were at the Temple while still being assigned regular missions on their journey towards knighthood. Training to become a healer would start in earnest after they were knighted._

“I think Master Che is trying to kill me,” Raen said, falling back into the grass. They worked the hair tie out of their sweaty copper hair and let it fan out around their head like the stellar halo of an eclipsing planet.

“Well,” Cy said dryly, “at least if she did, she if anyone is prepared to bring you back from the brink so she can work you to death again.” The Twi'lek Master of the Halls of Healing was known as a near miracle worker after all.

Not wanting to move from their place in the grass, Raen used the Force to lightly swat at Cy.

“You can’t be all that tired if you’re attacking me,” he joked. But he could see the exhaustion on his friend’s face. 

Raen had said the first year or so was going to be difficult as they built up their stamina. Healing took highly controlled, extended use of the Force, and even those Jedi who had a natural disposition towards it could quickly find themselves depleted. Repairing living tissue was unlike anything else that could be done with the Force. It simply took more raw energy out of the practitioner than things like telekinesis, enhancing a leap, or softening a high fall.

The two of them had long ago picked this spot as their favorite in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, and by extension, the entire Temple. The waterfalls were far enough away that they were only a soft white noise, and the lush vegetation in this area had a particular reverberation in the Living Force that they both found comforting. What better place was there to help Raen recharge?

"She gave me a new synthflesh pod today. This one has veins with a pump that pushes blood through them on a loop in addition to the muscle I had been working with already. The simulation was for a burn scenario. I regenerated the affected tissue while keeping the living tissue alive and the blood flowing. I was about halfway done, and she comes up behind me with a knife! An actual knife Cy! And she stabs the pod in the artery, so now I'm trying to stop the bleeding, while also keeping all of the burnt tissue alive, the blood is going everywhere- stop laughing!"

Cy couldn't stop snickering. "I bet the look on your face was hilarious though."

Raen sighed, letting their frustrations out with it. "Yeah, probably," they said with a hint of a smile. "Afterwards she told me that I should always expect the unexpected. I get what she was trying to teach, but it was kind of horrifying."

"I can imagine," Cy replied, "better you than me I guess."

Raen's face fell. "I miss having you in classes with me. I wish-"

"Wish that my disposition in the Living Force had turned into something useful? Yeah. Me too."

"Don't talk like that. You'll find your niche! We're eighteen Cy, we're not supposed to have everything figured out yet."

"I know," he said, "It's not even that, it's that-"

"-That we always dreamed about being knights and going on missions together. As a team." Raen finished.

"Yes," Cy said softly. "I feel bad because I thought our Force Bond meant we were supposed to do something special together. They’ve cut us some slack, and Master Koon and Giiett have given us so much extra training on how to strengthen our Bond and use it because spontaneous ones like ours are so rare."

Raen nodded slowly. "I understand. I feel like we have something to prove, prove that it is all worth it. I'm..." they hesitated. "I'm afraid that they may point us towards letting it go slack if our paths are diverging."

"No!" Cy exclaimed, and then blushed.

They both shared a guilty look. Cy groaned and flopped face first into the grass beside Raen.

"I am attached to you, much more than the Masters probably know, or would want," he grumbled into the grass.

"I don't-" they hesitated again, "I don't think we’re supposed to be perfect at loving without attachment at this stage in our lives."

Cy sat up. "But then we _are_ in violation of the Jedi code!"

Raen shook their head. "Cy,” they spoke gently. “You know the code is more about growth than compliance. Nothing about my bond with you has ever tempted me towards the dark side. Master Che coming at me with a knife however? Now that puts fear in my heart."

Cy laughed. Raen could always make him laugh. But that didn't stop him from feeling guilty.

"We could still be partners on missions you know," Raen continued, "since I am planning to go for full knighthood in addition to being a healer. I will likely get assigned to disaster and conflict areas as a healer, and you could be my partner for diplomacy, and protection."

"You don't need protection," Cy scoffed.

"I do when I'm like this," Raen said. "If we're in a conflict zone, and I'm exhausted from healing and more fighting breaks out, I won't be able to defend myself very well."

It was a sobering thought. But also, a bright bubble of hope in Cy's chest.

"I could live with that," he said.

"Besides," Raen said with a yawn, "I recharge much faster with you near me. When you were gone all last month it was so much worse."

Cy snorted. "Well there we have it then."

Raen looked quizzical.

"That's the grand purpose the Force has set out for me. To be your external energy pack."

Raen swatted at him again, this time with a hand.

"Don't be ridiculous." Their eyes softened. "I will always value my bond with you Cy, even when we're not on missions together. And who knows, there has to be some benefit to us having a longer range for communication. I could be here in the Temple, and you out somewhere on the Rim in trouble, and I'd know about it and be able to send in reinforcements!"

Cy smiled. "Who is to say you won't be the one in trouble?"

"Point!" Raen laughed.

"It does bring me comfort, being able to brush against your mind, even when we're in different systems."

"It does for me too. We'll always be there for each other Cy, I promise."

-

But in the present moment, while Cy shifted uncomfortably in meditation, in the foul inky darkness that the Force had become, Cy couldn't find his friend, his _partner_ , anywhere.

And that scared him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm making up lore here with the word "ashla" for a type of Force Bond. This is very much the Legends-style Force Bond, like what is between Luke & Mara (just throw the word "dyad" in the trash compactor for this fic, please). For years I have felt that certain types of Force Bonds are a lot like queerplatonic relationships, and decided to give a name to it. :)
> 
> Also, I had meant to mention it in the notes for the previous chapter, "kep" is the Zabraki word for child. I use it like "kiddo." I *think* it is canon from one of the roleplaying games. That or it is just widespread fanon, I found it on several Zabraki resource sites.
> 
> As always, please comment! Ask me questions, and check out my Tumblr blog for this fic @starwarsumbra
> 
> Infinite thanks to @thecrowmaiden for editing.


	3. Chapter 3

Khlora had woken up in a bad mood, and her day hadn’t improved since then. 

She was sick of sitting, and she was sick of hiding. The galaxy was falling to pieces all around them and they were doing absolutely nothing about it. They were Jedi, damn it! And they were just _hiding_ here like- like, she didn’t even know what. 

Actually, she did. They were hiding like cowards. That’s what. 

Her Master was too afraid to act; his eternal caution was going to lead to the two of them sitting by and doing nothing at all while the Republic crumbled. Further Holonet reports had left the two of them with the conclusion that the Chancellor-turned-Emperor either was the Sith Master himself, or he was close to whoever the Sith was. There was no other simple explanation for dead Jedi in his office while he remained alive. The thought made her sick. 

And through all of that, it had been days since they had heard anything from Dex or his operatives. Days! For all they knew, his whole operation had been compromised and a squad of clones would be breaking through the door while they sat there doing nothing.

Or stood there, making tea, in her Master’s case.

He looked up from measuring out the tea leaves and gave her a small smile. “Would you like some too?”

“No,” she snapped.

“Khlora-” he began.

“No!” She repeated. “I’m tired of you trying to placate me and tell me to be patient. I don’t want tea, and I don’t want to meditate, or read, or run through unarmed forms, or do any other pointless thing to pass the time. I want to go do something real!”

“I do too, but-”

“No more excuses!” She cut him off. _Blast_ , why was he so- so passive about all of this? Khlora spun on her heel. She needed to get out of the apartment. She couldn’t take it anymore. She ignored Cy’s further calls to her as she stalked out of the room, and then out the door.

She regretted leaving almost as soon as she had reached the street. 

She didn’t especially want to return to the apartment however, so she began to walk rather aimlessly. She knew she shouldn’t be mad at Cy, and she supposed that she actually wasn’t. She wasn’t mad at anyone in particular, she was just frustrated. Frustrated that it had been days since they’d heard anything from Dex or his associates. Frustrated that Cy insisted that they stay put and hide while the Republic burned around them. 

What was even more frustrating was that she knew Cy was right- they couldn’t do anything of use right now, and there was no sense in the two of them dying for nothing. As a Jedi, she had always been taught to accept death if there was no other alternative, but she definitely wanted to explore some other options before launching a suicidal attack on the Sith Lord like the other Masters apparently had. 

Her hearts ached at the memory of their prone bodies being displayed on the holonet. Master Fisto’s head, facial features still upturned in a gross facsimile of his smile as it leaked green blood onto the desk… and Master Kolar, oh Master Kolar, he’d always been a mentor to her. Now he was dead, now they were all dead, and she had been so stupidly angry and frustrated that she had walked out of what little safety she currently had.

It was at that moment that she realized she didn’t know where she was. She had turned down a few streets to avoid some unruly looking taverns and beings gossiping about Jedi betrayal, not at all keeping track of where she was going. _You’re just a shining example of a Jedi today Khlora_ , she thought to herself, kicking at garbage on the ground. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. A Rodian jostled her as he ran past, jolting her out of her thoughts.

“Hey! Watch where you’re going!” she yelled after him. He didn’t acknowledge that he heard her, he seemed to be in quite a hurry. Actually, it looked like everyone on the street was suddenly in quite a hurry. Khlora reached out into the Force and felt fear and panic amongst the beings nearby. Something was happening, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

Someone grabbed her arm, and Khlora reacted without thinking. She spun, twisting her arm free and falling into a fighting stance. A rather soft-looking Rutian Twi’lek girl, about her age, stood before her with a look of surprise on her face.

“I’m trying to help you, dumbass. Are you crazy? Get inside!”

With that, she grabbed onto Khlora’s arm again with surprising strength and marched her down the street. 

Khlora probed out with the Force. The girl's intentions seemed to be good, and without a better option, she decided to allow herself to be taken wherever it was that they were going.

They quickly reached a small speeder repair shop that was bustling with activity. An orange skinned Twi’lek, also about her age, nearly ran into them as he hurried past with an armful of speeder parts and datapads. A middle aged, dark skinned human woman and a Nautolan man were frantically shoving whatever was in reach into drawers and cupboards; another human woman was typing quickly into a data terminal. She looked up when Khlora and the girl entered, and a look of relief spread across her face.

“Darrion! You’re back!”

The older human woman turned to look at the two of them.

“It’s about time,” she said. “The patrol will be here any minute. Stick your friend under a speeder and get to work.”

Darrion nodded and turned, sticking a hand into a can of motor grease. She rubbed the grease between blue fingers and reached over to smear it across Khlora’s hands and arms.

“Hey!” Khlora protested.

“Well, I have to make it look like you work here,” Darrion said exasperatedly.

“Why?” Khlora asked, “What patrol? What’s going on?”

Darrion regarded her with a disbelieving look.

“Are you new down here, or just stupid? The Imperial patrol is coming looking for any disagreeable citizens. So people like you. And me. If you’re working they don’t take as much issue with you.”

Someone called to Darrion from across the room.

“Here,” she said, shoving the can of grease into Khlora’s hands, “finish smearing that on yourself then get under a speeder bike and pretend you’re fixing it. 

“When the patrol comes don’t do or say anything unless they tell you to. If they ask, say you’ve been working here for two weeks. Don’t kriff it up or they’ll probably arrest you- and maybe us.” On that note, Darrion turned on her heel and rushed across the room towards the person who had called to her.

Khlora wordlessly put some more of the grease on her tunic and smudged some on her face too, carefully avoiding her horns. Setting the can down, she reached for a nearby toolkit and slipped down into the repair pit under the nearest speeder bike. 

It was an older model but it was in fairly good condition… other than the rusted coolant pipe, that was. With nothing else to do, Khlora decided that she might as well fix it. She had enjoyed working in the hanger bay at the Temple; fixing things was always satisfying, and she liked the non-Jedi employees who worked in the repair yards too. She hoped that at least they had made it out of the Temple alive.

Khlora pushed that line of thought away and began loosening the bolts that held the rusted pipe into place.

The door to the shop opened. A pair of shiny black boots followed by nine pairs of clones’ boots entered, and a man with a definitively-not-a-clone’s voice began to speak. 

That must be who was in the black boots, Khlora reasoned. The repair pit was sunk just enough into the floor that it was difficult to hear exactly what they were saying, so instead she reached out with the Force. She probed for the clones, unsure if she would find the familiar yet unique Force signatures that were usual among them. 

No, these clones’ Force signatures felt different. Not just different from how they usually were, but different from everyone else in the room. They were… muted somehow. It was similar to how someone felt when they were concussed or delirious. So something _had_ changed with them after all; it was possible that their recent actions were not of their own free will. That made more sense- she still couldn’t believe that they would turn on their Jedi by choice. Maybe it was some kind of massive mind trick. Khlora didn’t think that was possible with millions of beings, but then again, if it was the Sith Master the usual restrictions of the Force were probably out. 

It had been a problem earlier in the war. After several incidents with Dooku and all of his Sithlings, most Jedi had started training the clones under their command to be more resistant to mind tricks. All reports indicated that they took to it well. Training, combined with the clones' hard won growing independence, proved to be effective; and there were fewer and fewer incidents of Ventress or Maul shredding through a clone’s mind as the war went on.

Her Master had loved watching the clones grow. 

He would nurture any living thing that would let him; be it his plants, his Padawan, or the clones under his command. He always had a book suggestion for anyone's new interest, and was happy to 'redirect' Republic resources to acquire materials for any hobbies they developed. 

In any case, the possible loss of the clones' free will under some Sith mind alteration was yet another horror that she didn’t even think she could quite wrap her mind around.

Khlora sat up slightly under the bike. She could hear a little better, and could see the red paint on the clone’s armor. Was it the same color of red as the Senate guard, or was it just a coincidence? In any case, she was grateful that it was not the dark purple of her own unit. She did not want to face them again. The thought of Tyro, assertive and fiesty Tyro, lost of everything that made him himself was a sharp pain in her hearts. Sweet, gentle Wes, curious Arad- all of them reduced to those empty husks of the good men they were. Antagonized civilians had hurled slurs at them as the war went on, calling them “meat droids” and the like, and she knew those words had cut deep. Now they were almost true, the clones’ bitterly fought for individuality ripped away-

No, she couldn’t think about that now. Not here. 

The black pair of boots, which she could now see were attached to a pair of green pant legs, began to walk around the shop, inspecting its various areas. Khlora went back to fixing the bike. She got the bolts loose and wiggled the rusted pipe out from its position. Khlora screwed up her nose as flecks of rust fell down on her and the smell of rust and coolant filled the small area. She began to dig around for a replacement part. It was a fairly universal piece- there should be one among the supplies down there. 

The boots began to head in her direction and her hearts began to beat faster. She needed to keep up appearances. Finding the part she needed she scooped it up and jostled it into place, her mind racing. What if he recognized her from a list of escaped Jedi? Did the Empire even know that she and her Master had escaped? Her fingers shook a little as she screwed the bolts back in place.

“Come out,” a stern voice called. “This is an Imperial inspection.”

Khlora slowly slunk out from underneath the speeder. The officer’s lip curled at the sight of her. He turned to the human woman standing beside him.

“And this is?” he asked.

“Just another employee.”

“And her work is… satisfactory?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any trouble with her and you report it, you understand me? These non-humans aren’t to be trusted.”

“Of course, sir.”

Khlora felt her cheeks flush, and she looked down to her boots. Very rarely had she experienced comments like this. Even on backwater worlds, her status as a Jedi usually protected her from whatever speciesism others may have harbored. Not anymore.

With a final noise of distaste, the officer turned and walked towards the exit.

“Your shop has been found adequate. Keep it that way or expect visits from us more often.” He marched out of the shop and the clones filed out after him. As the door slid shut everyone in the room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. The human woman looked pointedly at the orange Twi’lek, and he pulled a scanner from one of the drawers.

“We’re clear,” he said after a moment.

“I’m kriffing tired of this,” the Twi’lek girl, Darrion, exclaimed, punching the soft back of a chair. “The Republic could never be bothered to give a damn about us down here, and less than a week into this new government there are patrols out every day, treating us like we’re criminals.”

“You know it’s not the federal government alone,” the dark skinned human woman interjected, pulling her long box braids over her shoulder. “Last week that man was a small time peace officer. Now he has new authority from the Senate and Chancellor- or Emperor, whatever, and a squad of clone troopers to enforce whatever he edicts.”

“Officer Masrech was always an asshole, he just has more power to be one now,” the orange skinned Twi’lek spoke again.

Darrion made a disgusted noise and turned back to Khlora. “So what’s your story? Sorry if I was rude, but you were being an idiot. You’re new down here?”

Khlora’s mind raced coming up with a plausible story.

“Yes,” she said finally. “My uncle and I were displaced from an upper level by the Separatist attack last week.” She might as well have some sliver of truth of her story.

The male Twi’lek snorted. “Yeah, the upper levels were nice while it lasted, weren’t they?”

Khlora looked at him, confused.

“Sorry.” He smiled. “I’m just bitter. I’m six months away from my engineering degree at West Coruscant U of Structure and Design, and my funding got pulled. As nonhumans we’re just taking up all of the resources from hardworking humans, right?”

“Oh.” Khlora wasn’t sure how to respond. “I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is.” He shrugged. “I did miss home. It is nice to be back in some ways, even if everything is different.”

“So did you grow up on the upper levels then? You said you lived with your uncle, did he work there?”

That was Darrion again. Khlora opened her mouth, still trying to come up with a coherent story.

“I don’t think she wants to talk about it,” the Nautolan man finally spoke. “It has been a difficult time for all of us. Let us thank the gods that we all still live, and leave her alone unless she wants to fill our open position as a mechanic.”

The older human woman cocked her head at Khlora. “If you’re from the upper levels I doubt you know which end of a hydrospanner to use.”

“I do, actually,” Khlora said defensively. “I’ve spent some time in hangar bays, and I fixed that bike for you while I was under it.”

“Really?” The younger human asked, and she slipped under the bike.

All eyes were on Khlora now, and she wasn’t sure if she liked that. The older woman crossed the room and took one of Khlora’s hands into her own. She turned Khlora’s palm up and inspected it.

“You’re full of surprises, you do have calluses; not what I would expect from an upworlder. Have you got a name?”

A twinge in the Force told her that she should trust these people.

“Khlora.”

“Well, Khlora, I won’t ask you too many questions about your past. And if you can prove you know what you’re doing, you could have a job here as a mechanic if you want it. We’ve been short staffed.” She dropped Khlora’s hand and held out her own to shake. “I’m Lani, I own this shop.”

The Force was still pressing her forward.

“Yes, I would like that.”

“Great!” The orange Twi’lek said. He seemed to have a rather bubbly personality. 

“I’m Bahar by the way. You already met Darrion,” he said, acknowledging the blue Twi’lek. “She’s Lani’s daughter. The quiet Nautolan over there is Naal, he’s Lani’s husband.”

“And I’m Harini,” the younger human woman broke in, popping back up from under the bike. Khlora took a good look at her for the first time. She had beautiful golden eyes and chestnut skin, and Khlora felt a little struck by her. Damn, she had a type.

Harini turned to Lani. “It looks good down there. I say we throw some more difficult stuff at her and see what this upworlder can do.”

“Alright.” Lani clapped Khlora on the shoulder. “How do you feel about engines?”

“I love them,” she replied honestly.

“Great,” said Lani, “because there’s one over here that needs a lot of work.”

Khlora inspected it, her excitement building at the challenge and at something to do after the days of sitting. She tugged briefly at her Training Bond with Cy, letting him know she was all right, and got to work.

* * *

Cy paced around the apartment. He deeply hoped that he had been right in listening to both the indication of the Force, and his own instinct as Khlora’s guardian, to let her go. She needed to blow off steam. 

He didn’t like just sitting there either, but he was older and more patient. And if he was completely honest with himself, still reeling from the events of the past few days and nursing an aching shoulder. Khlora was still young, still full of fire and rash decisions. She had more need to be constantly on the move than he ever had, and that was more a factor of personality than age.

He wished that there was something that the two of them could be doing to help. Something, anything, to stand against this new Empire. However, as much as he wanted to be out doing something, he understood that he and his apprentice were now among the most wanted on the planet. Any attempt at heroics could easily get a lot of people killed in the crossfire, themselves included.

So he would stay in the apartment, even if he didn’t want to. Khlora couldn’t do that, but she would be back; and he was reasonably sure she wasn’t about to do anything incredibly stupid that would lead to violence. Part of him still wanted to run out and drag her back though.

One of the things that _he_ had to learn during her apprenticeship was that he could not always be there to protect her, and that letting her fail was as critical to her learning as anything that he could teach her. It was still hard though, as hard as it had been years before on Ilum, and every time in between.

Raen had teased him mercilessly about his fretting over Khlora while they were on Ilum. Raen had tagged along, citing that they were due for some retreat time away from the Temple anyway, but Cy was certain that they had planned it that way. That said, he had welcomed their presence when it was time for him to sit by the fire in a nearby cave and simply wait for Khlora to return with her crystal, even if they were playfully nettling him the entire time.

She had returned eventually then, and she would do the same now. Hopefully without the beginnings of frostbite this time.

* * *

Khlora could sense Cy at the door of their apartment by the time she exited the turbolift, and she braced herself for the well-deserved lecture she would probably receive upon entering. As the door opened before her however, she could see that he wasn’t angry, but relieved. He pulled her into the apartment, embracing her as the door slid shut behind them. She gladly accepted the hug. It had been a long day.

“You scared me.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left. I was being stupid.”

“I’m sorry too. I could have been less argumentative. This has been hard for both of us, but we can’t take it out on each other.” He stepped back, holding her shoulders at arm’s length. “What happened? I could sense you panicking at one point.” 

His eyes traveled across the motor oil on her arms and face. “...And why are you covered in grease?”

“Well, you know me, I made some friends.”

“Really, you?” He said in mock surprise, his mouth quirking into a smile.

“Yep!” She gave a cheeky grin and began ticking items off on her fingers. “I made friends, I fixed a swoop bike, and I avoided getting arrested!”

Cy closed his eyes. “You _what_?”

“Hey, _avoided_ is the important part here!”

“Khlora!”

She sobered. “I know. I messed up. I shouldn’t have been out there, I could have been captured and killed. There was a patrol of clones that came through. A girl pulled me into a mechanic shop and pretended I was a worker to keep me safe. Apparently they’re arresting non-humans if they find us loitering or something.”

Cy rubbed at his face, sighing. “Okay. You are not going out there again then, not until we’re leaving Coruscant.”

“But Master!”

“Padawan.”

“No, listen! I got a job!”

That stopped Cy. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Khlora, _why_?”

“Because it will be good for gathering information. We can’t just sit here and wait for Dex to solve all of our problems and whisk us away somewhere safe. Nowhere is safe!”

“No, it’s not. Especially not for you.”

“I’ll get something that covers my forehead. I can pass since I never got my tattoos.”

“Kep, no. It’s too dangerous.”

“We’re Jedi. We can handle dangerous.”

“We are fortunate survivors of what seems to have been a genocide, and I don’t want you risking your life unnecessarily. The potential benefit is just too low for that much risk.”

“And doing nothing at all is a risk you’re willing to take?”

Cy closed his eyes, and let out a deep breath. Khlora felt a little bad to be taking it out on him. Again.

“I want to be out there doing something as much as you do. It makes me sick to just sit here not even knowing what kind of horrible things are happening outside of these walls. But we have to be strategic.”

Khlora puffed out a breath, and flopped down on the couch with a growl.

“I know,” she said eventually. “I’m just going crazy sitting here, but I’m also going crazy out there hearing people talk about us like we’re criminals.” She sat up. “There are so many people who are just accepting what the Holonet says, they’re not even questioning it!”

Cy looked at the floor. “I think a lot of people may not truly believe it, but everyone is too scared to say anything different. Things are changing quickly, most people are just trying to keep themselves safe right now.”

“And for now, we should too?”

“As much as I don’t like it, yes. I’ve been thinking about what we could do here, and I don’t think that anything would be effective. Coruscant is too hot for us right now. We need to get off-planet. Then we can regroup, hopefully find others, and come up with some kind of viable plan.”

 _Hopefully find Raen_ , was left unsaid but she knew he was thinking it. Khlora flopped back onto the couch. She knew he was right, at least partially.

“I still think I should go back to Lani’s shop,” she said. “I could gather important information for us. Stuff we won’t be getting off the Holonet.”

She heard Cy blow out another breath.

“Fine,” he said at last. “As long as employment keeps you safe from those patrols. The second that changes you stay put here. Yes?”

“Works for me! Don’t worry Master, I’ll be smart.”

“You’ll be smart, yes, but you know I’m going to worry about you regardless.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to have nothing to do here.” Khlora smirked- and got up to go get all of that blasted grease off of herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having plotted out and written an early draft of this part 5+ years ago, the cabin fever Khlora is feeling really hits different now when the majority of North America and much of the rest of the world is currently at least somewhat locked down.
> 
> As always, comments are love! Thank you to everyone who has commented on the last two chapters!
> 
> For character art and etc., please follow @starwarsumbra on Tumblr!
> 
> Special thanks to @thecrowmaiden for editing.


	4. Chapter 4

Several days had passed since Khlora had finally gone stir crazy and stormed out, and Cy was at the brink of feeling the same way. 

With no further word from their contact, and no reliable news sources on the Holonet, Cy thought that it was time to do something a little risky. The power pack had been out of his communicator since that horrible night; and he still wasn’t sure how dangerous it would be to activate it, but the potential benefit of there being any sort of message with _real_ information outweighed the risk at that point. 

As long as he travelled far enough away from their residence that was.

He left a note on a scrap of flimsi for Khlora in case she returned from her day at the mechanic shop before him, and walked to the nearest public transport depot. For a while he simply watched the crowds move through, deciding how to best do things. 

As a Jedi he’d never had to pay for public transport on Coruscant; but experience on other metropolitan worlds where Jedi status did not grant him free use had made him at least familiar with the process. A day pass would be the cheapest, which was important with what little credits he had. However, he was concerned that if someone did want to track him that he could easily be traced by where that pass scanned on and off- making the whole travel endeavor pointless. Purchasing multiple single fare tickets would be safer… but would that in itself be something that would be flagged as unusual?

From under the hood of a waterproof poncho that was not nearly as comfortable or warm as his now-incinerated Jedi robe, he watched what other passengers were doing. Most did have a pass that they scanned and did not need to stop at the ticket terminal at all. Those who did use the terminals mostly purchased one or two tickets. The most he saw anyone buy was four. Well, that was going to make the process more tedious if he had to purchase another ticket at nearly every stop. Sighing, he released his annoyance into the Force and strode to the terminal.

Cy briefly grimaced at the price of a single ticket, and how much it was going to cost in the end when multiplied by however many transfers he made. It couldn’t be helped though. Boarding, he kept his hood low even after stepping out of the foul, polluted drizzle. It was lucky, he reflected, that so many on the mid-lower levels of Coruscant wanted to keep to themselves, so his skulking behavior was not out of the ordinary. He tapped at the map on the fuzzy-screened datapad attached to the seatback in front of him. He wanted to make no less than five stops, changing transport lines and city levels, to make tracing him back to where he and Khlora were currently staying nearly impossible. It would be ideal if he could figure out a destination where he could take an entirely different route back than the one he used to get there.

Eventually Cy stepped off the last transport, convinced that he had put enough distance between himself and the apartment. He walked for a while, in a manner that might appear aimless to an observer, and eventually found an alley with some storage crates that was empty enough for him to feel comfortable in. Cy sat behind rather than on the storage crates, and kept his senses alert as he fished out and reunited his comlink with its power pack.

The light blinked for a moment before it fully came to life. The blinking light changed colors. There was a message! Cy took one final look around the area, and having determined it to still be safe, activated the message.

_This is Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi_

Cy’s heart leapt. Kenobi being alive was fantastic news! He didn’t know him well, but every Jedi knew how critical he and Skywalker had been to keeping the front lines of the war the past few years. Having seen that first news report, Cy had assumed that the entire High Council was dead, and Obi-Wan with them.

_The message you received earlier was false, a trap. The war was not won. Stay away from Coruscant, and away from any Jedi Sites. The Sith Master we were looking for was in fact Chancellor Palpatine, and our Republic has fallen._

Cy and Khlora’s suspicions after that first report had been correct then. With so many council members dead in the Chancellor’s office, the Sith Master had to have been there, and if the Sith hadn’t killed the Chancellor...well, that left few options. It wasn’t a revelation that brought him any satisfaction. As unlikely as it had seemed, a small part of him had not wanted to believe that they had all been played quite that badly, and that the entire war had been for nothing.

_I do not need to go into detail of our history as an Order, you already know that. I will remind you however that we have always continued on, and I have no doubt that we will persist through this as we have for the past twenty-five thousand years. Although we have suffered great losses, the Force will always remain with us, and will continue to be born into future generations._

Cy felt a hard lump in his throat and held back tears. When he had studied those dark times as a Padawan he had always been glad that he lived in a time when Jedi were peacekeepers, and the Sith were a long dead horror. That peace had slipped in the past decade or so, and he now doubted that it would return within his lifetime. At least he had been able to grow up and live the majority of his life in that peace. Khlora, oh Khlora, she was never going to get to be a Knight as he had.

_While it is counter to how we have lived, think about keeping yourself safe. A time will come to fight, and it will not be in these next few months, or even years. Remain true to yourself as a Jedi, and act strategically. The Light has not yet gone out of the galaxy, and we must do what we can to preserve it for future generations in this long fight ahead of us. May the Force be with us all._

A note of static indicated the end of the recording. Cy saved it to his device, and held his breath to see if another message would begin. It did not, and the indicator light switched off. Cy’s heart fell. He had been hoping for a message from Raen. 

He would have to be content with only the knowledge that they were alive, it seemed. He still couldn’t firmly locate them in the Force, but he also had not felt the abrupt snap and following pain of their ashla bond if they had been killed. Cy took a breath to steady himself from the thought. His priority needed to be Khlora. Raen was a Knight and Jedi Healer in their own right, and could handle themselves. 

With another steadying breath he again removed the power pack from his comlink and rose from behind the crates. He rolled his aching shoulders and stretched his back. _Blast_ , he was starting to feel old. Tucking the two components in opposite pockets, he began his trek back to the apartment.

* * *

Khlora rubbed at her face with her sleeve and took one final look at the engine before sliding out from underneath it. She was grateful for the distraction that mechanics provided her. While she and Cy both felt too unsure to reach deep into the Force during meditation, the space of mind she entered while working out a problem like this was a good alternative. She yawned and stretched, pulling herself back into the rest of the world.

Bahar came up behind her, clapping her across the shoulder. Khlora turned and smiled up at him.

“You’re done with that right?” He asked.

Khlora nodded.

“Great!” Bahar grinned at her. “We’re going out for drinks since it's payday. Want to join us?”

Khlora silently considered it. She might get more information about the gossip and goings-on of this new Empire out of them over drinks than she did at work.

“Come on.” The tips of his lekku were twitching excitedly. “Only for an hour, so we all have plenty of time to make curfew.”

“Oh, alright,” she laughed. 

Bahar was the sort of person whose happiness was infectious. Khlora wished that she could open herself to the Force fully: he must shine so brilliantly there. Even muted she could tell that he was a bright presence. She allowed him to lead her over to Lani’s desk.

“Khlora’s coming with us!” He called to Darrion, as they passed her.

“Great! I’m almost ready to go. Harini, are you ready too?”

“Yep!” The other girl called, also sliding out from under a swoop bike.

Khlora shifted her weight around a bit nervously. While she did like everyone there and considered herself to be an outgoing person, things like this felt out of her element. There was so much of normal civilian life that she simply didn’t know, and she was a little nervous about how long she was going to be able to bluff it.

“Hey, Khlora.” Bahar waved a hand to get her attention. “Are you going to come get your credits or what?”

Right. Getting paid. That was one of those normal civilian things.

Naal smiled his species' trademark grin at her as he counted out what Khlora thought seemed like a surprisingly large amount of credits for only a few days of work. Or maybe it wasn’t once things that she was used to taking for granted, like food and rent, were brought into account. She and Cy were lucky they were well stocked for food and didn’t have to worry about rent at the apartment, or at least she hoped not. 

Khlora put the majority of the credits into the small pouch she typically kept them in, and slid it into her boot, shoving it low enough that it had no chance of falling out even if she had to run. The rest of the credits she put in her pocket. 

The other three were talking and laughing, like they didn’t have a care in all the galaxy. Khlora felt a twinge of anxiety, and- loss? She felt like an outsider, to no fault of her coworkers, and seeing them happy with the kind of ease that came with being old friends reminded her just how shattered her own life had become. There were so many beings she had lost. 

Part of her suddenly wanted to be alone.

Darrion however, turned to her and offered a bent arm for her to link with. Khlora did, and the group moved outside.

Their destination was not far from Lani’s shop, and like everything down there, it appeared run down and more than a little dirty. Stepping through the entrance, Khlora was surprised that the room before her was much cleaner than outside, and smelt of wonderful food.

“Oh, the big booth is open,” Darrion said excitedly.

“You three go grab it, I’ll grab the first round and we can settle up later,” Bahar said. “A Bantha Blaster and a Red Dwarf for you two right?”

“Yep!” Darrion and Harini said together.

“What do you want, Khlora?”

“Uh-”

“It’s okay if you don’t drink,” Darrion said quickly.

“No, I do.” 

The trouble was, Khlora had only ever had alcohol in the highly controlled environment of a Temple classroom when it was used as the substance to teach how to use the Force to rid one’s body of toxins, or any other kind of mind-altering drug. That, or in the highly chaotic environment of the clone barracks on a battle cruiser they were hitching a ride with. Carson and Robble sometimes invited her to destress with them in the shooting range after a difficult mission, and once some enterprising clone’s moonshine had appeared after they had racked the weapons and made their way to the common area. She’d never actually had mixed drinks with names before.

“How about a Mist-Cocktail,” Harini suggested. “It’s pretty light and tasty.”

“And it glows!” Darrion chirped.

“Sure,” Khlora said, rather relieved she didn’t have to try to make something up. It had been a while since she had practiced detoxing, and if she was going to be living in the underworld, it was likely going to be a good skill to have. 

Bahar departed with their orders, and the three of them squished into the low but comfortable booth. She hadn’t been in very many cantinas and the like on missions with Cy, but from her limited experience, this one seemed nice.

Then Harini got up to help Bahar with the drinks when she saw them arrive on the counter, leaving Khlora in a rather awkward silence with Darrion.

“You’re quiet sometimes you know,” the other girl remarked. Khlora nearly laughed, never in her life had that been something she’d been accused of before. 

“I know whatever put you down here isn’t easy to talk about,” Darrion continued, “But if you want to, we are happy to listen. The war has affected all of us, too.”

Khlora forced a smile. Darrion meant well, but Khlora really couldn’t accept that offer, as much as some part of her knew it would be cathartic to just get it all out. It was too dangerous to even consider telling these people that she was a Jedi, not just for her own safety, but theirs as well. No, Cy was the only person she could talk about this with. 

Bahar and Harini returned, saving Khlora from replying. They were carrying four drinks, one of which did in fact glow, and another that was a hissing and popping mix of pink and green liquids. 

“A Desert Bloom again, Bahar?” Darrion teased.

“You’re one to talk,” he replied, placing the fizzing drink in front of her. “You always get the same thing too.”

“It’s _fun_ ,” she said playfully. Bahar grinned, and reached over to swipe some of the foam off the top.

“Ah, gross!” She shrieked, and gave Bahar a hard shove, nearly pushing him off the side of the bench seat.

Khlora gave a more genuine smile, but was also struck by a pang of sadness for how she missed watching and joining in on those sorts of shenanigans and playful bickering with Carson and Robble, and the rest of the squad.

“You said you lived with your uncle?” Harini asked, purposefully ignoring the chaos across from her.

“Yes,” Khlora replied, “my whole life.” It was close to the truth.

Harini nodded. “Darrion never knew her bio-parents either. Lani adopted her when she was young, and then took me in too after-” Harini broke off, but she didn’t really need to finish for Khlora to guess.

“Where did you two pick up Bahar then?”

“Childhood friend,” Harini smiled towards him, but he was still too engaged with Darrion to notice. Harini kicked him under the table. “Enough.”

Her word seemed to be law, because the two stopped their play fighting and began to tend to their drinks in a more civilized manner. The silence at the table was still friendly, however.

“Did you watch the Chancellor’s speech last night?” Harini asked.

“What’s the point,” Bahar muttered darkly, staring down into his drink. “It’s all banthacrap anyway.”

“There are some things you can learn from it even so,” Darrion said softly.

Khlora shifted uncomfortably in her seat, even if this was the sort of talk that she had convinced Cy it was necessary for her to hear.

“Sure, like how karked we are,” Bahar said.

“Hopefully they’ll just forget about us down here like the Republic did. Officer Masrech seems to be dialing back the patrols already,” said Harini.

“I’m… just afraid they’ll try to drive all of us nonhumans to the lower levels before they do.” Darrion’s usual chipper attitude was gone.

Bahar swore under his breath and took another drink. “I’m just glad my family is all Twi'leks. If something like that does happen, we’ll all be together. I worry about the four of you.”

“At least I would have Lani, and Darrion would have Naal,” Harini replied soberly. 

“What about you?” She asked, turning to Khlora. “Is your uncle Zabraki too? Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you look like there could be more than Zabrak alone in your blood.”

“No, my uncle is human.” That had been why they had gone with uncle rather than father on their new ID chips. 

With her more petite stature and horns, as well as a more omnivorous looking mouth of teeth, she was recognizably not a full Zabrak to anyone who took a second look past the most distinguishing feature of her horns. Cy being her uncle was plausible, even with his olive skin tone much lighter than her own. Officially, he was the widower of her father’s sibling, so there was no blood relation between them. 

Granted, if it ever got to the point where someone was questioning _that_ , they were kriffed anyway because a blood test would reveal them to be Jedi, or at least strongly Force sensitive...

“Is that what his speech was about?” Bahar asked. “Segregating us to the lower levels?”

“No.” Darrion shook her head. “He was just spicing up his anti-Jedi rhetoric with some speciesism too. Going on about how the nonhuman Jedi who tried to assassinate him were ‘devilish brutes.' ”

“Jedi _don’t_ assassinate,” Khlora spat out without thinking, and was horrified even as the words left her mouth.

The other three looked at her, surprised by the severity of her tone no doubt.

“From what I’ve heard anyway,” Khlora added, feeling a blush rise in her cheeks. _Who’s quiet now, Darrion?_ she thought. Ugh. It wasn’t the first time her mouth had gotten her into trouble, and as much as she wished otherwise, it probably wouldn’t be the last.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right.” Darrion’s tone was placating. “Everything else he said was propaganda, and with you being from the upper levels, you’ve probably seen more of the Jedi than any of us.”

“Probably, yeah,” Khlora replied, hoping she sounded convincing. Bahar was still staring at her. She slunk down in her seat a little.

Harini cleared her throat. “Anyone else want another round?” Khlora shook her head, but the others did, and the conversation shifted to lighter topics. Apparently there was a big swoop race coming up in a few days, and Harini and Bahar had a rivalry about two of the contestants. Her feeling of awkwardness wore off eventually, and she was disappointed when Harini said that they should disband if they wanted to have plenty of time to get home before the curfew went into effect.

-

Khlora walked through the street towards the apartment with a small smile on her face. Her hearts were still broken over the loss of the Jedi, and of the Republic, but she enjoyed her time with the others from Lani’s shop. There were still good people in the galaxy, and for a brief period she could feel something like happiness. The unexpected credits felt good in her pocket, and boot for that matter, as well. She and Cy had carried little on them back on that night, and they hadn’t been left with much at the apartment either. The apartment was fairly well stocked with food and other supplies, but since it was the first time she or her Master had really dealt with long term personal finances, their inexperience concerned her.

Passing street vendors, Khlora actually found herself looking at their wares more closely than before. There was a vendor ahead serving sticks of meat and the scent was almost intoxicating. She hadn’t had fresh meat since the incredibly brief stop at the Temple in the afternoon before being sent out to scrape security footage. She wasn’t a completely obligate carnivore like full Zabraks, but other food sources upset her stomach after a while, and she was running out of her enzyme tablets quickly. One ‘great’ thing about being mixed of two species, one omnivorous and one carnivorous, was needing some of the nutrition types provided by plant based sources while simultaneously not digesting them very easily. The apartment had come stocked with some flash frozen and dried shelf stable meat, as well as some frozen in the freezer chest, but neither were as good as fresh.

Mind made up, she closed the distance to the stall, and exchanged one of her smaller credit chips.

Khlora munched happily on her skewer. It was some kind of avian, cooked tender with a savory glaze. It was a bit tangy too, although maybe that was supposed to be sweet. The stall owner had been a Twi’lek, and unlike her, that meant that he could taste sweets.

Another stall caught her eye. This stall was a little more built up than others; it had shelving, and those shelves held an assortment of small potted plants under artificial light. She had bought something for herself, it was only fair she bought something for Master Cy as well.

Khlora inspected the plants. It was the strangest thing to bring it on, but she felt a wave of grief rise in her. Of all that she had lost, right now she felt like she was going to cry over the memory of the menagerie of flora her Master kept in their shared quarters. Cy had set up lighting and an automatic drip system for his plants when he was away on missions, and she didn’t think he had bothered to turn it off on their very brief return to the Temple. If the section where their quarters were was not part of the Temple that had burned, and she really had no idea if it was, his plants would probably survive for quite a while provided that power and water weren’t completely cut. It was a nice, but a little melancholic image.

Her thoughts turned darker, and bile rose in her throat. If what Dex had told them was true and there had been a slaughter at the Temple, there could very well be bodies of fallen Jedi only meters away from where Cy’s plants still grew.

This was not a place she could break down.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

__

__

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

Khlora took a deep breath. She still wanted to buy Master Cy a plant. She could cry about it later. She let out the breath and steadied herself. 

She herself had a preference for succulents, but they didn’t provide much to take care of, and she knew how much her Master loved to dote on his plants. Or his Padawan for that matter, she thought, a small smile quirking up her lips again. Her eyes fell on a leafy plant that looked a little unhealthy. It didn’t look like it was in danger of dying, that would be the last thing she wanted to give him, but she knew he could perk the little plant up in no time, and it would make him feel better.

Even better, it appeared that one was marked down to half price. Sold.

With the skewer in one hand, and plant in the other, she continued on to their apartment. The drizzle of foul polluted rain that had filtered through from the upper levels that morning had stopped, and it seemed that the water had washed away some of the smell that simply came from so many beings in such a restricted space with no natural wind or other airflow. It still didn’t smell good, nothing like stepping onto a rooftop garden of the Temple, but it was mildly less… terrible.

Tossing the remaining stick into a waste bin before entering the building, she ascended the stairs a little slower than usual out of respect to the unhappy looking plant she carried with her. Looking down at it, she patted the top of the foliage with her now free hand.

“I have a new friend for you,” she cooed, and then blushed a little. Talking to plants was Cy’s thing, not hers. What everyone said was true, you eventually did turn into your Master, at least a little bit.

Keying in the passcode at the apartment door, Khlora hid the plant behind her back and stepped inside. Her Master was not in the main room, which was somewhat of a surprise. She heard movement in the kitchen, and stepping through she guessed correctly that he was making tea. Some flimsi sat on the table between her and the kitchen heating unit, covered in dark geometric patterns; Raen and Pierce were more of the artists than Cy, he would usually only doodle like that when he was stressed.

Cy looked up at her, smiling weakly.

Khlora pulled the plant around and set it on the table, forcing a triumphant smile.

“I brought you a new friend.”

A broader smile spread across her Master’s face. Mission accomplished.

“Oh, kep! Thank you!” He was already inspecting the leaves and stem, no doubt determining how to make it healthier.

“I figured a project case would help keep you sane sitting in here.”

Cy smirked a little. “Too late for that.”

“Oh?”

“Curiosity got the better of me. I went to go check my comlink. Far away from here,” he soothed as she opened her mouth in protest.

“Did you have a message from Master Raen?”

Cy’s face fell. “No, I haven’t been able to make any sort of contact with them.”

Khlora could see how much he was hurting not knowing if Raen was safe. Khlora was not as close with anyone as he was with them, and her close friends- that was old pain, but sorrow nonetheless. Of her two closest friends from the crèche, Ernin had died on Geonosis, and Sarsché had been shot down over Nal Hutta last year. There was no better answer there, knowing your friends had already passed on versus not knowing where they were and fearing that they could be killed any minute.

“I did get a message, though.”

Khlora perked up at that. “From who?”

“Master Kenobi,” he laughed a little at her puzzled expression. “It was an all call, not a direct message.”

“Oh.”

“He- he confirmed what we had pieced together. Chancellor Palpatine is the Sith Master.”

Khlora was glad that she was no longer holding the plant for she feared that she would have dropped it. As it was, she dropped herself into one of the chairs.

It couldn’t be.

But it was.

The entire war had been for nothing. No, not for nothing, for the Sith to take control of the Galaxy. Everyone who had died, Sarsché and Ernin, and the other near-thousand Jedi, millions of clones, and countless civilians who had died- all of that was for _this_.

The tears she had been holding back from the plant stall finally broke loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, huge thanks to @thecrowmaiden for editing help. Please comment, I crave validation lol <3
> 
> Happy first day of Pride month everyone! I commissioned this piece of art of Khlora, Cy and Raen at Coruscant Pride, and I really love it: https://starwarsumbra.tumblr.com/post/618939137071923200/joeyhazell-art-starwarsumbra-s-jedi-ocs
> 
> Pretty much everyone in this story is queer, except Officer Masrech, fuck that guy.
> 
> On the topic of Masrech/The Empire, this fic is likely going on hiatus for a week (or more???) because the next chapter contains the Star Wars equivalent of police brutality and it does not feel right to post that with the current state of the world. I'll still be posting art and etc. on the @starwarsumbra Tumblr blog in the meantime!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! 
> 
> The real world events surrounding police brutality made me want to put a pause on posting this, since there is some Star Wars equivalent of police brutality coming up in this story. At the end of the last chapter I said that it would be in this chapter, but I ended up splitting the chapter up because it was getting long. There is still description of violence to about the degree you would expect for this time period of Order 66/Fall of the Republic, but the particular part I was concerned about posting at present has been booted into the next chapter.

“Would you be able to come out with us again tonight?”

Khlora looked up at Harini from the engine she was repairing. There was something different in Harini’s Force presence. It wasn’t deceit, but it was something close to that. Secrecy? Secrecy with a strange mix of fear and hope, perhaps. Whatever it was, it did not feel like Harini had any ill will towards her, and it did not feel like there was any threat to her safety.

“Sure.” _Let’s see where this goes,_ Khlora thought. “Are we going out for drinks again?”

“Yeah, but we’re meeting up with some other friends first.”

That was a lie. Or at least part of it was. Khlora still felt no malice from Harini, or anyone in the shop for that matter, so she was willing to see how it played out.

Lani had said earlier in the week that she was closing the shop a few hours early today, but never specified why, and Khlora was beginning to suspect that she now knew. Khlora usually only watched the chrono when she was working on a bike or speeder that was due back to the customer within the day, but found that her eyes kept returning to it, counting down the hours until her abbreviated workday was done. Curiosity and Jedi patience were not mutually exclusive her Master always said, and it was certainly true today.

Was she being paranoid, or did it seem like the others were speaking in lower voices to one another than they usually did? Khlora couldn’t be sure. What she was certain of was that Naal and Bahar were speaking in lekku sign language, but she did not know enough to make out anything beyond the fact that it was occuring. Whatever they were up to, it was something that all of them were in on, including Lani and Naal.

Darrion startled her as she was observing the two, coming up from behind her to ask for a particular socket wrench. It was sloppy of her to not notice that bright bubbly presence on approach, and Khlora took that as a sign she needed to get her head back to the now.

The final hours ticked by. 

“You almost ready to go?” Bahar asked, as he draped himself over the front of the swoop bike that she had nearly finished reassembling. He spoke casually, but the stiffness of his lekku told a different story.

“Sure,” she said, snapping shut the last panel on the bike. Darrion and Harini were standing by doing a decent job of looking busy on tasks that weren’t actually necessary; and those tasks were dropped as soon as Khlora stripped off and slung her coveralls into the laundry bin.

The four of them took public transit, switching lines at several stops and keeping with conversation that was all very surface level. There was no doubt in Khlora’s mind that they were up to something, the only question was what. She still sensed no malice from any of them, or danger towards herself. 

They were not in a residential area when they got off the last transport, and from there they walked from the busy industrial area to a run down and dimly lit set of streets. It was good that they had left the shop early today. Khlora had a feeling that otherwise they would not be getting home before curfew.

It was getting to the point where _she_ would probably start looking suspicious if she didn’t ask questions. So she did.

“Not much further,” Harini replied.

“Don’t worry,” said Bahar. “You’re not about to get hazed.”

“Or murdered,” Darrion chirped.

“Gee thanks,” Khlora muttered.

“We’re nearly there now,” Bahar assured her, directing them all inside one of the run down buildings.

“And these friends- live here?” Khlora asked.

Harini smiled conspiratorially. “You’ll see.”

Down the long hallway a door slid open and a young Mirialan woman, wearing one of the species’ traditional styles of head scarf, looked out at them.

“Great, you made it!”

A human woman with warm brown skin much like Khlora's own joined the Mirialan at the door. “This is her?”

“Naw,” Bahar grinned, “we just found her on the street.”

“Well, technically that’s true,” Darrion snickered.

“Come on in,” the Mirialan spoke again. “I’m Irriym, and this is my girlfriend Aria.”

Khlora still had to stop herself from bowing during introductions. Instead she smiled and gave her own name as the group shuffled in to the room. Khlora paused for a moment, taking it all in. She still couldn’t tell what exactly the abandoned building had once been. Everything had been stripped out by scavengers leaving behind only cut cables and bolts in the floor. 

“You’re probably wondering what all this is about,” Harini said, once the door slid shut behind them.

“Yes.” Khlora admitted. 

“I’d be worried about you if you weren’t,” the new human girl, Aria, muttered. 

“We are sorry for all the runaround,” Darrion said, hopping up on a dingy looking crate. Khlora decided to remain standing.

“But you can’t be too safe these days,” said Irriym, crossing to a temporary computer terminal set up and settling on the rug that was decidedly cleaner than everything else in the room. 

“I agree,” said Khlora. “I’m guessing this has something to do with, well, _these days_.”

“The Republic had its problems,” Harini said quietly, “but we know that what the Emperor is saying is not true.”

“And we’re guessing that you feel something of the same way,” Darrion continued. “From what you’ve said about your life upworld, it seems like you were in favor of the Republic.”

“And the Jedi.”

Khlora had to prevent herself from flinching as Bahar added that last bit. Hearing him say the word was a fresh wave of pain for all that she had lost and would never get back. Each day it was sinking in more and more how thoroughly her past life had been destroyed. The Jedi were lost, the Republic was lost-

She stopped, let herself feel that grief, and let it go. Otherwise she would drown. 

“So what’s the plan with all this?” Khlora gestured at the tech set up on the floor. It looked hand built rather than off a production line, but she could recognize elements similar to what was in Lysses’ Republic-issue mobile slicing kit.

Irriym and Aria looked at the other three.

“You’re sure?” Aria asked.

The three nodded.

Irriym took a deep breath. 

“Bahar and I met at the University. I lost my funding, same as him. Aria came down here with me when I had to leave.” She gave her girlfriend a grateful look and squeezed her hand.

“I wouldn’t want to finish my degree now anyway,” Aria said, looking downcast. “I wanted to do contract security work for the Republic, not get conscripted into an Empire.”

“So you’re slicers.”

“Good ones too.” Bahar crossed the room and put an arm over Aria’s shoulder. “These two were always near the top of the class.”

Khlora nodded. “So the five of you are trying to slice into government channels?”

“And succeeding at it too.” Irriym puffed up a little with pride. “Some lower security channels anyway.”

Khlora was surprised. She doubted that security had slipped in this new Empire, and getting in anywhere was quite a feat.

“We set our gear up in abandoned places like this for a couple of hours, and we can tap in on the clone trooper comms pretty reliably,” Aria said. “We haven’t learned a whole lot though, and it is a bit disturbing to listen to for long periods. Their voices are so monotone and lifeless. It’s like they’re barely sentient.”

Khlora bristled at Aria’s judgement of the clones, and felt another wave of grief with it. Monotone? The only time they sounded monotone was if they were imitating a droid.

Arad… He’d had such a beautiful singing voice…

How had the Sith, or whoever it was, stripped so much away from the clones? How had the Sith stripped so much from the Galaxy as a whole so quickly? Khlora swallowed, trying to clear the painful feeling in her throat. 

“So you’re listening in- to what end?” she asked. 

“We’re not sure yet,” Bahar said. “Anything that gives us a lead to what actually happened, or what they may be planning next.”

“We know there’s something going on about a sector East of us,” Irriym broke in. 

“We don’t know what, but it involves a lot of personnel and a lot of data traffic we can’t get into.”

Khlora briefly entertained the idea that some of the access codes she knew may be able to get into some of those more secure channels. She dismissed it. It would be stupid to have not changed everything over in case of rogue Jedi like herself, and even if they hadn’t, how could she explain to these people why she knew military codes?

“So why bring me in?” She asked. “I’m a mechanic, not a slicer.”

“I think you have more skills than you let on,” Harini said. There was no way that Harini could know what those skills were, but it was a reminder of how little of a coherent story of her past Khlora had given them.

“And you’re clever.” Darrion added. “We could use another mind like yours.”

Khlora smiled at her. A team, it was almost like-

No- don’t even think it. 

Too late. She missed planning out missions with the squad. She missed Lysses telling the others to shut up while he sliced a system. Robble and Carson’s constant back and forth banter. She missed Tyro threatening to just toss _her_ at the enemy forces because he didn’t think he had been given enough grenades… and Mels exasperatedly shaking his head at them all. 

“So are you with us?” Bahar asked.

Of course she was. She was a Jedi, and for the first time since that horrible night she was maybe starting to feel like she could do her duty as one again. 

“Definitely.”

-

On the trip back she began to wonder if she could, or should keep this from Cy for now. She did not make a habit of keeping secrets from him, and she was not considering it lightly. But- he would only worry, and she did not think they were doing anything dangerous or worth worrying over for now.

That would likely change, but she decided to put off telling him, at least for tonight.

* * *

Khlora was back in her childhood creché, and the most conscious part of her mind knew that was a bad sign. 

It was.

When she turned away from what had once been her bunk, there were two small bodies on the floor. Her stomach lurched. The two younglings’ bodies were charred unmistakably by blasterfire. She recognized them from when she had last gone to visit her old crechémaster, but did not remember their names. 

It was not a conscious choice, but Khlora found herself walking out of the clan’s sleeping room. There were blaster marks on the wall that she and Sarsché had once dented while roughhousing. Well- she had dented it, it was her horn.

There was another dead youngling on the playmat where she and Ernin would build block towers as high as they could reach, and then use their tenuous grasp of the Force to stack them even higher. The dead youngling was a Pantoran like Ernin.

Khlora’s nausea continued to grow as she turned towards the corner used for reading and napping. The curtains and soft, fluffy, pillows and blankets were charred, as was the body of the human youngling who had evidently made a desperate last attempt to hide beneath them. 

Dex had said that clones had marched on the Temple, but they couldn’t have done this, they would never gun down younglings. But who else could have- no. They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t! This could not be real.

The feeling in her gut told her that it was.

Khlora wanted to scream. To cry. To punch the wall she had accidently once dented. But as much as she lacked control of her body’s movements, she lacked the ability to cry out as well.

Against her will, she was moving towards the atrium and entrance of the clan’s quarters. There were two more dead younglings right at the threshold of the atrium. The analytical part of her mind made note of the fact that all of these younglings were wearing their boots, rather than those tiny boots being lined up neatly in the atrium ahead of her. They had either been just leaving or just returning to their quarters when they were attacked.

Her crechémaster was dead about halfway down the atrium hall. Her lightsaber lay just out of reach of her hand, and there were blast marks across her abdomen. The bodies of three clone troopers with blue markings on their armor lay with her. One had his blaster cut by a lightsaber, and all three bore saber cuts through their armor.

It _had_ been the clones.There really was no alternative with this evidence. Khlora wanted to weep. She wanted to close the now glassy eyes of the woman who had raised her from the time she was a toddler until she became a Padawan. Her body still obstinately refused to obey her, and instead she was forced to move further up the hall. 

Another clone lay at an angle in the doorway, preventing it from fully closing. Through that gap Khlora saw only more bodies, more smoking destruction. Knowing was one thing. Seeing was another. The horror of so many bodies- the horror that this was the site of her earliest memories, now thoroughly destroyed and desecrated...

The whole Temple must be like this. Dead younglings. Dead padawans. Dead knights and masters. The old. The sick and the injured. All killed by clones. All-

-

Khlora jerked awake thrashing, tumbled out of bed and landed on her hands and knees. Acid burnt at her throat and she scrambled to the refresher. She barely made it in before she was sick.

She felt Cy approaching, and he squatted behind her, placing a hand on her back. He pulled her hair back as she retched again and again.

Eventually, Khlora sat back on her heels and fervently hoped she was done. Cy rose to the sink and got her a cup of water.

“Nightmare or vision?” he asked. 

Khlora swished some of the water and spit it into the sanitation unit. “Vision. I think.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

She looked up at him, eyes still watering.

“I saw the Savrip Clan creché.”

“Oh,” he looked stricken. He knew what that must mean.

“Dex was right. The clones killed everyone. Including the younglings.” Khlora’s voice broke. Cy pulled her into an embrace.

“There weren’t many other possibilities, but I still didn’t want to believe it,” he murmured. 

“Me either,” she said into his shoulder. Khlora drew back from him a little so she could face him. “Have you noticed what they feel like in the Force now?”

Cy looked down with a frown. “I haven’t gotten close enough to anyone to get a good read since that night.”

Khlora sat back the rest of the way on her heels.

“It’s like they’re empty.”

“Empty?”

“It feels like when someone is concussed, or- worse.”

Cy pursed his lips. 

“Do you know what could do that?” Khlora asked.

“No,” Cy shook his head. “Some kind of mind alteration on the scale of millions of sentients shouldn’t be possible even if-” he trailed off.

“Even if the Sith are involved,” she finished, hesitantly. 

“I suppose we can’t say that for sure,” he mused. “The implications are horrifying in any case.”

“Or maybe it means we can get them back?” She hardly dared to say it out loud. Could whatever had been done to them be undone? Could they be freed of whatever seemed to be consuming their minds, their very souls?

 _Could she get her friends back?_ A very small voice inside her asked that question. The Jedi were dead, but the clones were still alive. She and her master had not injured any of them in their escape- were they all still alive? All still together even? If they could find them maybe they could-

Cy brushed a sweaty lock of hair from her face.

“I know what you’re thinking, I want to believe it too.”

“That there’s still a chance?”

Her master sighed. “I don’t know. If any mind healers survived and could get a look at one of them, maybe. If we could even capture one of them safely without hurting him, or him hurting himself or us.”

“But there’s not anything either of us knows how to do.” Khlora said soberly.

“Not unless you’ve been studying Sith mind domination without me knowing it.” A faint smile appeared on Cy’s face.

Khlora shuddered. “No thank you. What was covered in class was more than enough. It’s gross.”

“I would have to agree,” Cy said, standing up and offering her a hand. “I don’t think either of us is going back to sleep yet. How about some moving meditation or taking some unarmed forms at a stretching speed?”

Khlora took the offered hand, and the suggestion. After washing out her mouth again, and wiping her face down too, she followed her Master into the open living space and fell into the familiar embrace of unarmed forms.

* * *

They had both eventually gotten a few more hours of sleep, and Khlora had put on a brave face when leaving for Lani’s shop for the day. Cy had tried to convince her to comm out sick, but she had wanted the distraction of engines and ionizers. Cy found himself distracted as well. Distracted enough that it took longer than usual to find his way into his first of the day’s healing trances for his still-injured shoulder. 

Upon emerging from the healing trance several hours later, he had the same thing on his mind that he had when stepping into the Force. 

_What had happened to his men?_

In his grief over the death of nearly all of his fellow Jedi, the destruction of the Republic, and the very loud pain of his own physical wound, he was ashamed to admit he had not put a lot of thought into the wellbeing of the men who had inexplicably turned on them. 

All throughout the war he fought his own battle with anxiety over the beings whose lives he was entrusted with. Not being comfortable having another's life at stake had been a large part of why he had waited so long to take a Padawan. He was willing to risk his own life and safety for the Republic, but not anyone else’s. Khlora certainly wasn’t helpless, even when she was fresh from the creché. But in peacetime he’d had the luxury of safe and simple missions while he had a preteen in tow. That was not the case in war. He had been handed the responsibility for the lives of nine young men who were a frankly disturbing combination of battle ready soldiers and newborn nexu kittens. They knew war and all that came with it far better than he, but they had experienced so little of what else the galaxy had to offer. Something as simple as spiced long-noodle broth, a versatile staple on so many worlds that lent itself to infinite combinations of vegetables and proteins was a completely foreign novelty to them. Things Cy had grown up taking for granted were new and exciting in their eyes. It was a delicate balance to treat them like the (still very young) adults that they were while also taking on some kind of guiding role to help however he could as they explored what this vast galaxy had to offer.

Circ had a mind for mathematics. That was not exactly one of Cy’s own talents, but he knew enough to point Circ in the direction of fractals and non-euclidean geometry for something that was a little more fun than what he had been taught on Kamino. Circ had taken to it gleefully after Cy downloaded a few files from the Archives and sent them to his datapad. It wasn’t long after that Cy found Circ and Pierce bent over sketches of intricate fractal tattoo designs.

Not everyone’s interests were so easily accommodated into hobbies. Wes, the animal lover, could not exactly run a shelter out of the _Zenith Starlight_ , the light freighter they called home during missions. Not that Wes hadn’t tried. The best Cy could do was send him whatever the Archives had for the local fauna of their next planetary mission so that Wes would know what to look for- and what to look out for. Wes eventually took the latter a little more seriously after one too many incidents of Pierce having to take spines, stingers, or venom out of him.

Some of their developing hobbies required more physical things, and Cy did his best to acquire them. Art supplies for Pierce. Some additions to the _Starlight’s_ galley for Tyro’s interest in cooking and baking. Building supplies so that the inseparable duo of Carson and Robble could make modifications to the ship’s interior to their hearts’ content; it started as something to store and display the plants and rocks the two of them were bringing back to the ship, and grew from there. Cy quickly learned to switch to lighter materials for their building supplies in order to prevent arguments between them and Mels and Lysess who were concerned about what extra weight would do to the ship's maneuverability in atmo.

Mels and Lysses did really enjoy working on the ship’s mechanics and weaponry. At first Cy wasn’t sure if it was an actual downtime activity for the two of them, but it was. Khlora and Tyro joined them often as well, and the four of them bonded over a love of mechanics.

Arad was closest to his own heart in preferred leisure activities; the two of them shared a love of the infinite arts and culture that the galaxy had to offer. Shared book recommendations, and late night hyperspace conversations about their own respective clone and Jedi cultures drew them close together within the first few months of working together- long before any of the other clone troopers had really come out of their shell.

Trust, _real trust_ , not just following whatever directives he gave them because they had been taught to, was built slowly with the other clones. It helped that Arad was their Corporal, the second in command among the clone troopers. Cy was not a soldier, no Jedi was, but many took to the role better than he did. He was glad it had not taken much to have himself and his Padawan assigned to a specialized unit rather than an entire battalion or squadron. The council knew as well as he that Cy was not suited for the front lines of battle. It was not something he was ashamed of. Jedi were meant to be builders of peace, taking up arms only as a last resort. Even then, melee combat was so different than leading an army into battle against a million uncaring droids who could not be talked down.

No, he could serve better on small scale missions, as could the clone troopers who had been assigned to him. They found cohesion soon enough and learned to play to each other’s strengths. When a mission called specifically for the knowledge of a military tactician, Cy looked to Mels and Arad. It took a few missions, but eventually they grew comfortable advising him in what to do.

Now he didn’t know what to do, and there was no expert to turn to. Cy rose from his cross legged position and made his way to the kitchen. Raen would tease him about his tendency to respond to a problem with “make tea about it,” but at the moment he did not have any better ideas. And if Raen wasn’t there to tease him, well, they could keep their imaginary commentary to themself.

He wished they were there though.

Cy had spent the better part of the past three weeks just sitting, still injured, in Dex’s crash space that was typically used by beings who had gotten themselves into Force-knows what kinds of messes. It was hard for him to adjust to being the needy rather than the needed, but really, what else was there to do? Jedi could work independently in isolated missions, but for their overall lives? They thrived on community, especially for a Galactic-scale upheaval like this. That was the difference between the Jedi and Sith. Sith were for the one, Jedi were for the whole. And only two Jedi against a Sith Emperor? Well, he and Khlora were certainly not on the level of the now famous Kenobi and Skywalker team, but Cy doubted that even the two of them could have taken that man down alone if he truly was the Sith Master. 

He filled a pan with water for tea and set it to boil. While it was small in comparison to everything else, Cy reflected, he missed the simple things like his tea set back in his quarters at the Temple. Or even the rapid boiler that was part of the field cooking kit he and his men used for his tea and their caf.

Cy had never thought that he would wish to be back fighting in a hot and active warzone, but maybe that was better than all this. As terrifying and out of his depth those missions were, at least he had a clear purpose, and he was with a dear group of people that looked out for each other.

It was the rebuilding efforts that Cy had liked best and was most comfortable being part of. For starters, Raen was usually assigned with him for those missions to do their work as a healer, and Raen made any situation more bearable. Outside of that, helping a war-torn city or village and its citizens back on their feet was the most Jedi-like task there was in galactic war. Once the Separatist armies had been vanquished and the Republic battalions were shipped off to the next hotspot, there was still work to be done, and Cy was glad to do it. Just because the army had left, did not mean that the horror was over for those who actually lived there. There were rogue droids, written off by the Separatist leaders as collateral that had no concept of surrender and would continue to blast anything that had the misfortune of crossing their sights. There were landmines, live munitions, and other hazards left behind by both sides that had to be safely cleared away before civilians could be safe on their own land.

Cy enjoyed that work, and the men liked it too. They loved helping with the distribution of aid and rebuilding efforts. They loved playing with the children and helping civilians feel safe in their homes again. Cy had often wondered what kind of life the clones might have found for themselves after the war was over. He could have easily seen them finding fulfillment and happiness in disaster relief work with the Order in peacetime, when nature rather than machines were the cause of strife. Cy did not think there would have been any resistance among the Jedi in adding any clones who wanted it to the ranks of non-Jedi personnel that worked in the Temple and Corps. There may have been a custody battle with the GAR, but in the end-

In the end none of that mattered. The war was lost, and so it seemed any chance of the clones ever seeing a peaceful life. If what Khlora said was correct, those brave, loyal, good-natured men may have even lost themselves.

And the worst part was, he did not have the first idea of how to help them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I'll be back on a more weekly schedule now with updates moving from Mondays to the end of the week. Thursdays maybe?
> 
> Big thanks to @thecrowmaiden on Tumblr for her continued support in editing.
> 
> [Also, I recently commissioned art of Naal, Bahar, and Darrion!](https://starwarsumbra.tumblr.com/post/622745326353350656/) Take a look on my Tumblr for this fic @starwarsumbra.
> 
> Please comment!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s… been a while, hasn’t it. Six and a half months? Yeah. Life had me preoccupied for a while, and things continued to just be too real to want to write about space fascism. I’ve finished up these next few chapters in bits and spurts though, and here we are. The content warning for the Star Wars equivalent of police brutality has been pushed back yet another chapter as this chapter was split again for too much going on in it. I should be getting the next chapter to you in less than six months this time. Hopefully as soon as a week or so!
> 
> Quick recap since it has been so long: Cy and Khlora remain hunkered down in the apartment that Dex sent them to with no further word from Dex or his associates. Khlora continues to work at Lani’s repair shop, and the other young adults that work there took her to meet a couple of slicers that Bahar knows from university. The group is conspiring to try and find out more information about what this new Empire is up to as they realize that a lot of things just don’t add up. Khlora returned to the apartment and had a vision/nightmare that showed her childhood youngling clan quarters in the aftermath of the clone’s march on the Jedi temple. She and Cy talk about what possibly could have caused the genuinely good and honorable men they know the clones to be to kill younglings.

It was nearly a full week before there was any mention of their encounter, and mildly treasonous talk, with Irriym and Aria. It was Darrion who brought it up, asking Khlora if she would have time for a “visit with the happy couple” the following evening. Khlora guessed that that meant the two slicers; not Lani and Naal who she saw daily, or Bahar and whoever his latest conquest may be. She agreed, and tried not to let her mind become too preoccupied with what the next evening may hold for her.

-

They met up nearer to Lani’s shop that time. It wasn’t any less desolate than the first location, but it was closer. Khlora was surprised to see that the two women had not brought their equipment with them. She doubted it was a purely social visit.

“You know that station a sector East of us? The one we said was hot?” Irriym asked, closing the door without any preamble. “Something big is going on there.”

“Big like what?” Bahar leaned back casually on some storage crates in the small, scummy room they had found for the rendezvous, but he looked interested. 

“We’re not sure,” Aria replied with a frown. “They’re not giving a lot of details on the comms we’ve been able to slice into.”

“What have they been saying?” Khlora asked.

“They’re moving something out, but they may be bringing something in as well,” Aria said. “And whatever it is, we think it may be alive, possibly sentients for at least one direction of transfer.”

“Could this be where they’re taking nonhumans to the lower levels? Like the rumors?” There was a hint of fear in Darrion’s voice, and Harini reached over and squeezed her hand.

“We thought about that too.” Aria shot a worried look at her girlfriend. “And it might be that. Or it might be more clone troopers.”

“Why would they be bringing more troops down to this level?” Bahar asked, standing up a little straighter. “There’s nothing here...” 

His voice wavered for a moment and Khlora felt her blood run cold as his eyes flicked to her, and then deliberately away. There was silence in the room as undoubtedly everyone considered their own horrible scenarios.

 _Blast it, Bahar._ He’d been benignly suspicious of her origins from the first day. Last week he had casually implied that she knew her way around the Temple District when he was talking to her about his time on the surface levels. At the time she had hoped that was a fluke and not him testing the waters on a hypothesis… but it was looking more and more like he had reached a conclusion about where exactly on the surface she had come from. 

She trusted Bahar. He was not about to hand her over to- to the clones for ransom. But was she really that obvious? She tuned back into the present as the conversation started up again, saving the question for later.

“So what’s our plan?” That was Harini, ever the pragmatist.

“Lani’s shop is closed tomorrow right? If we all got closer to the station, we may be able to boost our signal and pick up more of their comms chatter,” Irriym explained.

“And if not that, we would have visuals at the very least,” Aria continued.

“How are we going to do that without attracting the attention of the clone troopers?” Darrion shuddered a little. “They give me the creeps.”

Khlora bristled, as always, at words against the clones. The clones were a risk to them of course, she did not deny that. But if Darrion and the others could know them as she had- if they had known them as the good men they were- they wouldn’t talk that way. The clones were brave, and dedicated to the Republic even while few outside of the Jedi ever treated them as the sentients they were.

The men had fought for a Republic that had no loyalty to them in return. As the war had worsened and the tide of public opinion turned, Khlora had sometimes felt like it was just the Jedi and clones against the whole Galaxy...

* * *

_“They’ve sent us a child.”_

Cy’s voice broke through Khlora’s concentration on her interstellar navigation homework.

“Sorry, what?”

The new clone they’re adding to our unit while Tyro is healing. He’s not even nine.” Cy shoved his datapad in front of her face. Khlora looked guiltily at the report that she’d only skimmed earlier. She had noticed that this clone looked younger than the others, maybe about her age, but she hadn’t really thought it through as to how old that would make him chronologically. She had not looked at his decanting date which, her Master had correctly noticed, was not even nine years earlier; making him about seventeen in clone years. Khlora shook her head.

“There isn’t a lot we can do about it. I’m sure he’ll be able to hold his own on the battlefield, they wouldn’t have sent him out if he couldn’t. He’s about the same age as me.”

“If I had it my way, you wouldn’t be out here either,” Cy grumbled. “It’s all I can do to keep you- us, off the front lines.” Cy gestured widely with the datapad. “He doesn’t even have a name. They’ve sent us a teenager who has a blaster and doesn’t have a name.”

Khlora did not particularly want to discuss it again, but she’d learned over the years that it was much better just to let her Master go on his rants when he got upset about some injustice he couldn’t fix. Any attempt to placate him would only lead to her Master drawing inward and spending the next hour or so stewing quietly about his inability to right every wrong in the galaxy. 

That didn’t mean she couldn’t try to distract him however. Shoving her schoolwork aside, she slid off her bunk to the floor.

“The gunships bringing new troops to this cruiser should be arriving soon. Why don’t we go down early and see if the rest of our squad has anything to report?”

“Alright,” he said distractedly, dropping the datapad onto his bunk. 

Khlora knew he would still be quietly raging until he got to air his grievances to the Jedi High Council -not that they had control over it- or worse, one of the higher ups in the Republic military. Hopefully meeting the new member of their squad would put his mind at ease a bit. At that point in the war, it wouldn’t surprise her if they had been assigned a clone that was too young to hold his own. Stars, she knew she was too inexperienced for it half the time. 

Khlora knew she shouldn’t, but recently she’d found herself daydreaming about what her life would be like if the Republic was not at war… regular missions that weren’t military. Learning at other Temples as she approached Senior Padawan status. Going to Iridonia to earn her tattoos...

The only good thing the war had brought was the clones. Khlora could not imagine life without them, and she didn’t want to either. 

Maybe when it all was over, any clone who wanted to could work with the Jedi rather than the GAR. They could even live in the Temple! She thought that their Squad would like that. Carson would love the Room of a Thousand Fountains, Arad would spend hours in the Archives, and Wes would adore the younglings…

They just had to get through the rest of the War. Get through this mission, then the one after that, and the one after that. On and on until the War was won. Khlora reached for the Force for a little comfort and peace. It was possible. Their lives would be something other than war again- they just had to hang on.

-

Everything that could have gone wrong on the mission had, almost as soon as they had departed the 104th’s Cruiser that they had hitched a ride with. Khlora herself and many of the others had only moderate injuries, but their newest addition to the squad had not been so lucky.

Khlora could see that it was already too late. The skin on his chest was charred underneath the armor. He must have taken several shots from the many droidikas they had struggled to destroy. The poor man was convulsing as Pierce bent over him. Tears burned in her eyes, but she did not turn away; Khlora knew she was going to watch him die, and there was absolutely nothing she could do. She wasn’t a healer, and Master Raen wasn’t on the mission. Pierce put a hypospray to the injured clone’s neck and the convulsions stopped. Cy paced nervously beside them. 

The young man seemed to gain some consciousness back after a moment, and he moaned and squirmed on the dusty ground. Pierce moved his scanner across the other clones chest, his frown deepening. He looked up at Cy.

“I know you’re not a healer, but can you try?”

Cy nodded grimly and knelt beside them.

“I- I don’t think, I don’t think I’m going to make it,” the young man gasped.

Cy’s hands were spread out over the clone’s chest. He was healing him, but only barely, and his life force was already too weak. Khlora could feel him slipping further away.

“Hush. See this blip?” Pierce said, indicating his medical scanner, “It means you’re still alive. Just hang on, and let the Captain help.”

“Blip,” the clone whispered. “I like that name.” He took a shaking breath and closed his eyes.

“No!” exclaimed Cy, shoving his hands harder down onto Blip’s chest. Khlora felt the Force swell out of him, but Blip was already gone.

“No! Dammit!” Cy’s body dropped and his forehead rested on Blip’s burnt chest. 

“Damn it!” he whispered again, driving his fist into the dirt. There were tears in his eyes when he looked up at Pierce. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Sir, it’s not your fault.”

“It is. He was my responsibility, I shouldn’t have let him- I should have protected him, he was just a child, he-” Cy’s sentences were coming out in gasps.

Khlora reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. The war was too much for him. It was too much for her too, but she was nowhere near as attuned to the Living Force as he was. He felt every death as a wound in the Force, and it clearly overwhelmed him. Khlora pulled her Master to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again.

“Sir,” Arad spoke up, “Having only one casualty after that ambush was a miracle. You take good care of us.”

Cy’s breath hitched, but he nodded slightly.

“Can we bury him?” Pierce asked. The clones around him nodded. Khlora wasn’t the only one who had figured out how to redirect her Master from a near panic attack. She could see Cy’s resolve solidify as he grasped at the new thing to focus on.

Slowly, his chest stopped heaving. “Of course,” he said finally.

They buried Blip under a tree near a cliff. Everyone switched off to share the load, digging with the two shovels they had. They couldn’t fix everything, and they couldn’t bring Blip back, but by the Force they could give someone a proper burial for once. It made Khlora sick to think about how often bodies weren’t retrieved, it often being too dangerous to go back for them. Putting Blip to rest was the least they could do.

It had surprised her that a burial had been suggested as opposed to a pyre. Maybe that wasn’t as common outside of the Jedi; she’d never really thought about it before. She had learned about the rituals surrounding death in a few cultural studies classes, but she’d never thought about what the clones would choose to do with their dead if given the opportunity to decide for themselves. She didn’t think burials would be possible on Kamino- maybe that was why they liked the idea. If the solid ground of a planet was not something they had experienced in life, at least they could be rooted somewhere in death...

* * *

Khlora listened idly as the others planned when and where they would meet tomorrow for their reconnaissance. Her mind was still lightyears away- and years away too. It was a strange thing, she had thought that when the war ended she would never be nostalgic for the days she had spent during it, but she could have never imagined it ending like it had. Somehow, as horrible as the battles had been, at least the Galaxy made some kind of sense. She’d had a home and a family among the clones and her fellow Jedi.

The Jedi were gone now, and the clones were some kind of Sith-controlled husks. What little roots they had- their connections to each other -had been stripped of them, too. Was their squad even still together? She couldn’t bear to think of them split up, especially not the ones who were especially close; like Carson and Robble, or Circ and Wes. 

If they had been split up, would they even care that they were separated from their favorite brother in their empty-feeling state? 

There was nothing that Khlora wanted more than to be able to give the clones themselves back, to break them out of that emptiness if the men they had been still existed underneath that. But she couldn’t. There was nothing she could do, not for the clones, or for anything else against the Sith. What were they thinking, this little group of six, trying to unlock the new Empire’s plans alone? Hopelessness washed over her.

No. They had to try. They would be careful, and they would not take unnecessary risks, but they had the opportunity to do something- which was what she had been craving for the past month. Tomorrow, they would take action. 

But tonight, she needed to tell Cy- the one person she had left - _everything._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R.I.P. Blip - I am so sorry.
> 
> You may have picked up that Cy is referred to as a "Captain" in the flashback. I figured that if he was leading only a squad of clones rather than a full battalion that it would make the most sense for him to be a Captain, Khlora a Lieutenant, the top clone in charge- Mels, a Sergeant, and the clone second in command- Arad, a Corporal. It is iffy if all Jedi are automatically generals and commanders, so I decided to go with no, they're not if they never would take on that role in an actual battle.
> 
> This chapter was way shorter than others have been because of where a natural split felt best in what I had intended to be a single chapter. There will be another short chapter next, then it'll be back to longer ones. :) I've bumped up the number of intended chapters to 18, but in reality it will probably be more like 20 or more in the end. We're right on the cusp of something big here...
> 
> As always, a huge thank you to my editor, @thecrowmaiden on Tumblr.
> 
> Since the last chapter posting I commissioned @Aliche13 to draw some adorable cuteness of youngling Raen and Cy, [ that you can see at this link](https://starwarsumbra.tumblr.com/post/628647735751475200/) to the fic's Tumblr blog, @starwarsumbra.
> 
> Please leave a comment! <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said in several of the previous chapter’s notes, there is a content warning for this chapter for the Star Wars equivalent of police brutality and  (hover for more info that is a spoiler)   
> 

His padawan seemed rather unsettled when she returned to their apartment. She shuffled around briefly before joining him in the small kitchen.

“You’re back just in time, I’m almost done making dinner.”

“Master.” Whatever Khlora was upset about, she clearly wasn’t in the mood for small talk. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Cy looked up from the stove, more curious than anything else. Khlora shifted uneasily and he felt a great swell of compassion for her in all she had endured the past few years. “Yes, ‘kep?” he asked, the love he felt in that moment resonating deep in his voice.

“The others at the shop that I’ve told you about, the ones my age; they have- well, we have- been doing some digging.”

Cy set down the spatula he was using and turned to face her. “‘Digging’ as in...?”

“As in slicing. Bahar has friends from university who were kicked out like he was. They were in cybersecurity programs-”

“So they can break in as easily as they can wall out.”

“Yes.”

Cy sighed and turned his attention back to the meat he was grilling for Khlora before it burned.

Across the Galaxy, Jedi were still dying. Each death was another shadow eclipsing the Force. If the Force was the night sky, then the stars were slowly blinking out- sucked into the maw of a black hole by the inescapable gravity of the Darkness rendered from a Sith victory to the War. The Jedi were not warriors in the way many cultures defined it, but they would fight to defend those who could not protect themselves. Yet now they were the ones who were nearly defenseless against the growing Dark.

The Sith victory was as cataclysmic as the creation of a black hole. The star- the heart of the _Republic_ had burnt out. As it collapsed in on itself, it left only violent destruction in its wake. Not even light could escape. And if he and his Padawan got too close to the gravity well- too close to what the Sith had done, they too would be sucked across the event horizon and blink out from the universe. Not to corruption. No, he knew that both he and Khlora would die before they would turn, but if the allies of the Sith found them; then death would shortly follow.

Cy sighed and turned to dial down the heating unit before facing her again. He leaned back against the counter and loosely crossed his arms in front of him. 

“I’m not going to tell you not to get involved. I’m only going to ask that you be mindful of the situation as a whole.”

Khlora seemed a bit at a loss for words. 

“Come here, Khlora,” he said, opening his arms towards her. She crossed the small distance and fell into his embrace.

“We were lucky, my Padawan.” Cy ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know how much longer our good fortune will last, whether we continue to sit in this apartment, or find some way to do a small amount of good and justice in this new Sith Empire.”

“I don’t want to die,” Khlora’s voice was muffled against his chest.

“Of course not,” Cy murmured, and bent slightly to kiss the top of her head. “And I trust you to make wise decisions, but- you’ve felt the lights of our people continue to blink out too, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” her voice sounded so small- so _young._

“I have been thinking much of the same, you know. We have sat- or maybe just I have sat- here long enough.”

Khlora pulled away slightly and looked up at him, fire in her eyes. “You’ve been healing!” she exclaimed.

“I have. But unless I can see an actual healer, my shoulder is nearly as good as it is going to be now. If you feel the Force is telling you it is time to act, you should listen.

“Just,” he paused, a wave of grief passing over him. “Please just be careful.”

“I will, Master; I promise.”

-

Morning came.

Khlora meditated to center herself. She felt fear, naturally. She let herself experience that anxiety, dug into the root of it- fear of failure, fear of dying or the death of others- and let it go. What she was preparing to do had risk, but a Jedi’s life was risk. It was nothing compared to other missions that she had been on.

But of course everything had changed between the present moment and those missions she had completed before.

Her mind drifted, and she allowed it to. She remembered one of her first missions with Master Cy. A broken world with an ancient crumbling Jedi Temple, long abandoned. They found the holocron and other artifacts they had been sent to collect, as well as some delightful tiny dragons about the size of her Master’s forearm. Khlora felt the warmth of that sun on her skin, and the wind in her hair.

Cy had let her wander a little ways out of his sight on that mission, and she had promptly fallen through the unstable floor to a lower level of the ruins. He had rushed to her instantly, but seeing that she was not in immediate danger, he sat cross-legged on the stone above her and coached her through figuring out how to crawl back up by herself.

It was a privilege, she knew, to grow up safe and loved. To have those moments of growth guided by a benevolent teacher who adored her with every fibre of his being. As she had ventured further out of the safety of the Coruscant Temple she saw that many beings in the galaxy did not have the same cozy childhood. Getting older meant that she gained an understanding of the complexity of the Galaxy. Often, so much of what the Jedi strove to do was impeded by a simple lack of social and welfare programs, both on Coruscant and on so many other worlds- regardless of if they were part of the Republic.

The Masters had said that it hadn’t always been like that. That there had been a time before greed had overtaken the senate, before they began allowing corporations the same representation as planetary bodies. Most beings outside of the Jedi Order did not believe as the Jedi did in the interconnectedness of all life. Decisions in the Senate were made by bias for one’s own homeworld or corporate interests rather than the wellbeing of the Galaxy as a whole. As the neglected pieces of the Republic crumbled, so did the sum of the parts. 

Khlora had only vague memories of any chancellor other than Palpatine. She remembered the way the Force felt strained in the upheaval that marked the departure of Chancellor Valorum. He had really been nothing but a name and a face in her lessons at that point- she had been only six after all. But the events of that week were seared in her memory. A Padawan coming back with his Master slain, and having slain a Sith himself, was the main point of the Temple gossip mill at that juncture. Her teachers had tried valiantly to turn their lessons back to the political ramifications of what had occured in the Senate.

That was really where it had all begun, wasn’t it? Palpatine was likely a Sith even then, so the Sith on Naboo had to have been sent there by him. The Trade Federation as well. The War hadn’t started on Geonosis, it had started on Naboo. For almost her entire life, the Republic- no, the Galaxy- had been under the control of one terrible man, a Sith, and now it was more so than ever. 

One man had taken so much.

Khlora took a deep breath and once again centered herself. The information needed to be processed rationally, not emotionally. 

She and her friends would succeed today. They would take their first step toward taking back a little of what one man had stripped from the Galaxy.

-

The peace and resolve she had found that morning stayed with her as she traveled to the predetermined rendezvous point. There was a hope within her that they might find some small piece of an answer that day.

Unsurprisingly, Irriym and Aria had arrived early to set up. But unlike Khlora, they were not having a peaceful morning as everyone arrived.

  


Aria made an angry noise and pulled at her braid. “The signal is jammed, we can’t get anything from inside the building.”

Darrion looked alarmed. “They’re jamming us? Does that mean they know we’re here?”

Irriym shook her head. “No, this looks passive. I think it might be a literal firewall.”

“What do you mean by literal, Irriym?” Bahar asked. “As opposed to what?”

“As opposed to digital. The whole facility is made out of some kind of material that blocks the wavelengths that modern communications use. Nothing gets in or out except at particular points and you have to be right on top of them to radiate your data.”

“That would explain why we’ve never been able to get anything out of here.” Aria sighed. “Just the clone comms as they’re coming and going.”

“So that’s it?” Darrion asked.

“Unless one of us can climb over that building unnoticed and plant a booster right on top of the relay panel,” Irriym said.

“Don’t look at me,” Darrion motioned to her side. “Harini is the athlete here.”

“Not that kind of athlete,” Harini muttered. “You’d have to drop down from a taller building to even get there. If you don’t break something on that landing you’d still have to find the blasted things. And avoid gods know what kind of detectors they have on the roof to make sure no one does exactly that.” 

Bahar’s eyes met Khlora’s in the silence left by Harini. There was a question there- almost a challenge. 

“I can do it,” Khlora heard herself saying in response to what Bahar had left unsaid. It probably wasn’t the safest choice, but it was nothing compared to an average mission during the war. Though she wouldn’t have a squad of clones to back her up. Or her Master to sit on the stones above her and guide her way to the top. But that was why she had to do it. If there was some clue as to what had happened to the clones and the rest of the Jedi- to her family- she had to try. It could give some clue how to help the clones, and she owed it to them. She owed it to everyone who had died that night while she still lived.

“You?” Aria raised an eyebrow at her.

“Yes, me.” Khlora put some bravado into her voice, pushing away the welling emotions about the night everything had gone wrong. “Just because I couldn’t afford a trip back to Iridonia doesn’t mean I haven’t been training for my rite of passage.”

The other five looked at each other.

“We’ve come this far.” Bahar clapped a hand over Khlora’s shoulder. “I believe in her.”

The others looked less certain. 

“There’s more to it than that,” Irriym said. “This plate is going to look like the rest. You’d have to physically move a scanner around the rooftop until you stumbled upon it.”

“Do we even have what we need for this?” Harini asked. “Do you two even have that kind of scanner and the booster device with you?”

Both Irriym and Aria looked offended. 

“Of course we do,” Irriym said.

“Do you think we’re amateurs here?” Aria scoffed. “The scanner can be any comms device open to receive all signals. As soon as you get a high data volume you know you’ve found it.”

“Right,” Harini said. “I should never doubt you two.” Harini spun to face Khlora now. “So. You’ll need a cable- what else?”

Well, she really didn’t need a cable, but she couldn’t say that. “Gloves would be good so I don’t rip up my hands. And I’ll need someone to belay me- Bahar?”

“Sure.”

Good. If things went poorly and she had to use the Force, well… it seemed like Bahar had already figured it out. Hopefully Khlora could contain that knowledge to only him. 

“There’s cable and gloves at the shop that should work. Since it’s closed today, Darrion and I will have to be the ones to retrieve them. The rest of you don’t have any business being there.” Harini pointed out.

“That works.” Renewed hope was obvious across Irriym’s face. “We’ll take that time to explain the technical side of this to Khlora.”

Khlora listened attentively even though she was correct in her estimation that she was already familiar with most of it. Spending the last three years listening to Lysses babble excitedly whenever the moment arose for him to explain something technical rubbed off.

_Oh, Lysses…_

Khlora’s resolve only strengthened. She was doing this for Lysses, and for everyone else. If a lot of clones were being brought to the facility, if there was something that she could learn about what had happened to them…

…and if her Master could find Master Raen or another Jedi healer… 

She dared to let herself hope, just a little.

But first, she needed to focus on the task at hand.

-

Cy was shaken out of his meditation and healing trance by something approaching on the horizon. What though, he could not say. 

He probably did not need to continue with the healing trances, anyway. As he’d told his Padawan the night before, his shoulder seemed to have reached as good of a state as it could without actual medical care. Inside the small apartment he could not fully test it the way he would in the physical therapy gym at the Temple, but there were a great many things he lacked with no further access to his home of fifty odd years. That gym was not high on his list of what he missed most.

He stood, stretching, and shifted his attention into a moving meditation and delved back into the Force to discern what this new, murky… _something_ was.

-

The plan was simple enough. Bahar would belay her down. Irryim and Aria had shown her holos of what the weighted alarms looked like, and the scanner really was quite simple. Khlora had the Force to aid her as well, not that the others knew that. It was simple enough. On a mission, that would have been the “easy” step, something that would have been assigned for her to carry out alone even before the war began. 

So why did she have a twinge of a bad feeling about it?

She pushed it aside as just nerves. It was what needed to be done. Khlora looked out over the roof, from the broken window of the building overlooking the precinct where they had taken roost.

“Comms check.” Darrion’s voice came through her earpiece.

“Acknowledged.”

Irryim and Aria would be keeping an eye on things digitally, Bahar and Harini would monitor visually, and Darrion would communicate between all of them. Everything was in order. They were civilians, but they were competent, and it was going to work.

Bahar nodded to her that he was ready, and Khlora easily slung her legs out the window and rappelled down the building. She landed light-footed on the precinct roof.

So far so good.

Khlora took an initial glance at the layout. She spied several of the panels that were weighted alarms, but where was the transmission plate? 

Khlora closed her eyes for a moment to let the Force guide her feet in a direction that felt right. She needed her eyes for the scanner, but she felt confident she could monitor both it and the Force at once.

Moments passed. She knew the others were probably all holding their breath as every second she spent on the roof her chance of being discovered increased.

She began to feel a small twinge in the Force, and was unsure if it was good or bad. It felt like both.

The scanner chirped. Yes- there! There was her prize! A small plate that promised access into the whole facility for the flying fingers of Irriym and Aria.

Khlora moved with a Jedi’s grace to the panel. She plucked the device from her pocket, and set it on the plate, pushing the button to trigger its locking mechanism. It was then that a sense of danger flared through the Force, and an alarmed voice sounded in her ear.

“Khlora! Run! They know-!” The rest of Darrion’s words were lost to static.

A hatch opened, and a clone trooper’s upper body popped out. Khlora stood frozen- the image of Tyro’s blaster raised at her coursing through her mind again. No, no-

A blast rang out, and the clone trooper slumped forward, dead. Khlora looked up to see Bahar rappelling down after her, blaster in one hand. What was he doing?

There was a sound from the hatch, and the dead clone’s body was dragged below as if taken into the den of some predator. A moment later another clone appeared in his place. Khlora was frozen no longer, and dodged his shots hoping desperately that she could draw his attention away from Bahar.

There was another shot, and that clone fell to Bahar’s blaster as well.

“Are you not armed?!” he yelled to her.

“No!” Khlora cried, and it was the truth. She had not brought her lightsaber, she had long since stopped carrying it for fear of discovery.

Another clone emerged from the small hatch.

“Let’s go then!” Bahar yelled, motioning in the direction of a building with a lower roof that was a reasonable jump. 

Khlora sprinted forward, but then skidded to a halt as a larger hatch opened and an entire squad of clone troopers poured out of it. Their blasters were drawn, and they efficiently cut off the path for her and Bahar to reach each other, or to escape to the building below.

Khlora’s mind raced. She couldn’t think of any option for escape other than knocking all of them over with the Force. There had to be a way without-

Another man emerged from the building. He wore an officer’s uniform and his stature was decidedly not that of a clone. He looked- amused more than anything, and his presence in the Force was oily. This was a man who loved to control and dominate others, and he filled his role in this Empire with glee. Khlora was struck for a moment. This was the same man- Officer Masrech, who had come to Lani’s shop when Darrion had pulled her off the street. She had not recognized his face, but there were few beings whose presence in the Force was so foul.

“That’s quite enough,” he drawled. “We have four of your co-conspirators already. Drop your weapons and put your hands up, if you want them to live.”

 _Blast._ If they had the others, she couldn’t leave now. Bahar looked to her, and she nodded, raising her hands above her head. He followed her lead and dropped his blaster. 

Troopers moved to cuff both of them, still feeling to Khlora like empty voids inside where a person should be. She and Bahar were marched down the steps of the hatch that had disgorged the squad, and through a series of identical hallways. Khlora’s mind raced, furiously trying to construct a plan to get her and the others out of there alive. In normal circumstances there was no way she could perform a mind trick on a military group like this, but with how empty the clones felt inside, it might just work. It was a terrible risk though. If she failed it would become clear to the officers exactly who she was, and that would only put all of them in a more dangerous position.

Their destination was eventually reached and they were thrust into a small room that, if Khlora’s sense of direction was accurate, must be near the edge of the building. A few clones were left to guard them while the others left, so Bahar said nothing, but his lekku twitched aggressively. 

A scuffle was heard in the hall, and the door slid open to reveal Darrion, Harini, Irryim and Aria. All were putting up a considerable fight, but it was really no match for the assured strength of the clones who were wrangling them. Their four friends looked crestfallen to see Bahar and herself already in custody.

Masrech entered behind them, full up on the thrill of power; it showed clearly in his eyes. He foolishly dismissed the troopers who were with him. It was Khlora’s window to use the Force to overpower him, but she needed a way to get all of them out of the building first.

He began to speak, words hateful and voice full of disdain. But even while he spoke about how they were a threat to the citizens of Coruscant, and that this sort of delinquency would not be tolerated under this new Empire as it had been by the soft Republic, Khlora started to come up with a plan.

Masrech strode back and forth like a preening avian.

“Who is your leader?” He asked.

 _Oh please,_ Khlora thought. _No one say anything. Please please please._

Bahar stood up abruptly. “I am.”

_Kriff._

The officer pulled out his blaster. “I could kill you, any of you, right here. No one would question it. Do you think you are brave, boy? Do you think you’re going to be able to stand against an Empire?”

Bahar stood up straighter. “Yes,” he said. “You can’t keep the people of a thousand systems under your control.”

The officer scoffed. “Damn Twi’Leks. The only reason we don’t completely wipe you out is because your _whores_ are so good-”

With a cry of rage, Bahar lunged at the officer. A single blaster bolt hit his forehead and he fell to the ground dead.

  


At that moment, a bright green blade shot through the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> R.I.P. Bahar. You were too good and brave for this world.
> 
> Thank you as always to my beta/editor @thecrowmaiden, and to everyone who has commented on this fic! I appreciate every comment so much. It gives me all those warm fuzzy feelings to know that others enjoy this story that is such a passion project for me.
> 
> I'm going to try to stick to a schedule of a new chapter ever other/every three weeks, but we'll see how that goes. I'm part of the Perseverance Mars rover team, so on the 19th I go on "Mars Time" and will be working a weird schedule. Soooo either the weird schedule will end up being productive to me writing in my free time, or you won't see me for three months lol.
> 
> As always, check out @starwarsumbra on Tumblr for art and other updates!


	8. Chapter 8

Cy’s blade made quick work of the wall; the circular cut fell to the floor with a clang. He took in the scene before him. Khlora and five others were in cuffs. A male Twi’lek was on the ground, dead. The wound that had clearly killed him smoked lazily, and one of Khlora’s companions stared down at it as her breath came in gasps. An Imperial officer stood over them all, looking surprisingly amused at the development of having an intruder cut through his wall.

“A Jedi! To what do we owe this pleasure?” the officer spoke, “My my, even after the extermination of your Order, you still manage to stick your hands into everyone else’s business.”

Cy’s eyes had been fixed on the corpse of the Twi’lek boy. He tore his gaze away and met Khlora’s eyes, and then looked to the officer. Cy pointed to him with his blade.

“You can be silent now.” His voice was cold, and he felt a strange sort of calm. 

Digging into one of his belt pouches, Cy retrieved the emergency beacon that he had received from Dex before they parted. He tossed the beacon to the darker skinned human girl, who caught it with cuffed hands.

“All of you, get out," he said, motioning to the hole he had cut into the wall. "Once you’re away from here, call for aid on this. Just explain who you are, and they will help.”

“Look at you,” the officer said patronizingly, “the war is over and you’re still giving orders, General.”

“I thought I told you to be silent.”

The officer laughed. “I think we have a misunderstanding of who is in charge here.”

Cy ignored him. He threw out his hand, and all of the stun cuffs clicked open. “Everyone out. Now.”

That time they responded. The Twi'lek girl moved to lift the boy’s body, but the girl Cy had tossed his beacon to pulled her away. She let out a small sob, but allowed herself to be moved. The human girl put her arm around her and helped her towards the exit.

Khlora remained kneeling by the boy’s body. She reached out and gently closed his eyes. The Mirialan girl tried to move her, but Khlora shook her head.

“My place is here,” she said motioning to Cy. A look of comprehension crossed the other girl’s face.

“You’re a _Jedi_ ,” she whispered. “So that’s-”

Khlora cut her off. “You need to go.” 

The other human girl took the Mirialan’s hand, and they moved towards the exit after the others. As if finally realizing his prisoners were actually escaping, the officer opened fire with his blaster and the girls broke into a run. Cy deflected the blaster shots effortlessly, covering their escape. For a moment, the officer lowered his arm with a sneer, and Cy turned his head to check that the two had safely made it out.

Another blast rang out, and Cy felt a searing pain through the Force. He turned his head to see Khlora standing with her hands clasped to her lower abdomen, over her subsidiary heart. Her legs buckled, and she fell to the floor beside the Twi’lek boy. She hadn’t had her lightsaber; she had been defenseless! Something seemed to break open in Cy’s mind, and he was suddenly filled with an intense rage. Cy ripped the blaster from the man’s grasp with the Force. He crossed the room in a few strides, and leveled the blade of his lightsaber with the other man’s chest.

“Are you going to kill me now, Jedi? For what? I do not regret my actions. You are human, like me. We should be on the same side! This is the Empire of Man; the alien filth can yet be wiped from the galaxy!” The officer paused his tirade to grimace. “I only hope that neither of them had the chance to breed yet-”

Cy snarled, the tip of his blade jumping up to the other man’s throat. Anger pulsed through his veins. His hands shook. He should kill the man. The man had killed that Twi’lek boy, and shot- not killed, she wouldn’t die, she couldn’t die- his Padawan.

“Master,” a weak voice called. 

Khlora. She lay on the ground, pain clearly etched across her face.

And yet the sight of her grounded him.

Cy steadied himself, and let go of his rage. Let go of his pain for the loss of the Jedi, the loss of the Republic, and the loss of the clones. He let go of the grief for all the innocent lives that had been lost since his boots had touched the sands of Geonosis. 

Grief vanquished, anger vanquished, fear vanquished- at least for now; and there was still a man before him.

A man who was full of hate. A man who had gleefully allied himself with this new totalitarian regime. This man had killed and would kill again.

Jedi were not meant to be judge, jury, and executioner.

 _But_ -

The morality of an act was as dependent on the factors of the society surrounding it as much as anything else. Before the war, he would have never taken a life if he could have prevented it. 

But any act, including one of compassion, did not exist in a vacuum.

A Jedi value he held dear was that of showing compassion for all life. For valuing all life. However... if the life he spared was determined to harm other beings, then leaving him alive was not an act of compassion. 

There was no good answer. 

There never was. 

But this man would not kill again.

With a flick of his wrist, Cy’s blade struck true through the officer’s heart. It was over quickly; there would not have been time for the message of pain to have reached his brain.

It was not the first time Cy had taken a life. 

It was the first time he did not regret it.

Cy turned and knelt beside Khlora. The pulse from her primary heart was still strong; she would be all right for a little while. They needed to get out, clone troopers could arrive at any moment. He carefully lifted Khlora’s limp body and ducked through the hole he had cut in the wall upon his arrival.

-

It hadn’t been much more than a month since the two of them had been running through the streets of Coruscant on that horrible night, and yet there they were again. They needed to get as far away as possible, and they needed to get there quickly. Cy hoped that Khlora had another comlink on her person. He just needed a safe place to find it and call for help.

He briefly took his eyes off the alleyway to look at Khlora; he was carrying her as he would a sleeping child. 

Zabrak biology was amazing, but it had its limits. Her bivascular system could run for a while with only one heart functioning, but with every minute that passed her organs were receiving less blood, and with that, less oxygen. Eventually the lack of blood and oxygen in her brain would damage her mind- permanently.

Cy took a lift down deeper into the lower city. He hoped to find some empty structure there where they could hide and call for help. Stepping out of the lift, he paused and searched the Force for guidance. Finding an area nearby that appeared uninhabited, he turned down the street towards it.

Khlora had begun to feel very heavy in his arms, and Cy knew they were rapidly running out of time. He was beginning to feel her presence fade away in the Force. They were going to have to call for help where they were, and hope their allies found them before their enemies did.

Cy ducked into a derelict building. He wove his way through a series of corridors until he found a room with a still functional door. He pried it open with the Force, stepped inside, and closed it again. It would have to be good enough. Cy settled them somewhat awkwardly, doing his best to not aggravate Khlora’s injury as he laid her on the floor. He placed her head on his leg so it wouldn’t rest amidst the grime. Deciding that she was in the best position possible, Cy dug into Khlora’s pocket until he found a comlink. He activated it, punching in a code to access the emergency line Dex had told them of. 

There were a few seconds of static before a droid’s voice responded.

“This is a restricted line. Please state your passcode.”

“Tython.”

“Your voice print and passcode have cleared. Transferring.”

When the comlink came on again it was no longer a droid at the helm, but the tone was similarly clipped.

“What is your emergency?”

“I need a medic and evacuation quickly. My companion, a Zabrak, has been shot in the subsidiary heart.”

There was another pause. “Okay,” the voice became a little less business-like. “I’ve locked onto your signal. Stay where you are and a medic will be with you shortly.”

Cy let out a deep breath and sank back against the wall. While he was strong in the Living Force, healing was not one of his talents. _Damn it Raen, why aren’t you here?_

Carefully he pulled away the charred fabric from Khlora’s blaster wound. It looked bad. The energy from the blaster bolt had charred her flesh and her abdomen was too damaged to be able to tell how deep the energy pulse had gone. The subsidiary Zabrak heart was too low in the body to be protected by the rib cage. Instead, a system of cartilage discs connected by ligaments protected the lower heart from harm. 

It was possible that Khlora’s heart was undamaged, that the cartilage had been enough to protect her heart from being burned, and the electrical charge from the blast had stopped her heart. That would be easier to fix. Even a human could survive that.

Of course, Cy reflected, if she were human it was possible that the Imperial Officer would not have shot her. He’d had a particular vendetta against non-humans. 

Cy touched Khlora’s forehead with his thumb and forefinger. He gently brushed against her mind with the Force. She was already in a healing trance; good. There was little else he could do but wait for the medic. There was no point in trying to heal her burnt skin if it was just going to be reopened to perform surgery on her lower heart. Frustrated at his inability to do anything useful, he leaned back against the wall and stared furiously at the ceiling.

He hoped the others that had been with Khlora were all right. That poor Twi’lek boy… he must have been Bahar. Khlora had spoken of him often. He had seemed like a good man- and now he was just another victim of this new Empire. At least the teenagers had Cy’s beacon. Their allies within Dex’s network should have picked them up by now. They would be safe.

Eventually Cy felt a presence approaching them rapidly. Seconds later, footsteps accompanied it. Cy rose, and released the latch on the door. It opened to reveal a dark skinned man carrying a large medpac.

“You’re the caller?”

“Yes.”

Cy sensed no malevolence from this man, but other than that he had no assurance that this was the medic their allies had sent them. It would have to be good enough. Cy followed the man and knelt beside him as he began to examine Khlora. The medic dug briefly in his bag before pulling out a medical scanner.

“From what distance was she shot?” he asked.

“About two meters.”

The medic made a _tsking_ sound. “Do you know what kind of blaster it was?”

“No.” Cy had never liked blasters, and had never paid much attention to the various model names. All he really knew was from overhearing the clones talk about them. “It was smaller than the standard DC-15s that the clones carry though. I would guess it was probably whatever standard issue is for Imperial Officers.”

The medic nodded. “We need to get her to a proper medical facility. I have an aircar nearby. Ideally we’d have a hoverpad, but we’ll have to make do. Do you need help carrying her?”

Cy shook his head and stooped to scoop Khlora up. Her breathing seemed shallower than before. A lump rose in his throat. She was always so full of life, this couldn’t be her end. 

He couldn’t lose her too.

The medic led them through the halls swiftly.

“I’m Stephar by the way.”

Cy tipped his head in acknowledgement, but couldn’t bring himself to say anything in return.

They had reached the building’s exit. There was an aircar parked directly in front of the door. An older Mon Calamari woman sat in the driver’s seat.

“We still going to the SouthSide medical center?” she asked.

The medic nodded and helped Cy lift Khlora into the back of the aircar. He then turned to address him.

“I need to ride back here with her. You take the front seat.”

Cy did not want to leave Khlora’s side, but the medic was right. There wasn’t room for all three of them in the back and Khlora needed Stephar’s attention more than she needed her Master’s. Cy silently slid into the front seat next to the driver. She shot him a compassionate look and started the aircar, and Cy turned in his seat so that he could watch Stephar’s work on Khlora.

The ride to the medical center was miraculously short, partially thanks to the Mon Calamari woman’s reckless flying. When the aircar jerked to a stop outside a nondescript building, the doors flew open and a medical team spilled out. Khlora was swiftly loaded onto a hoverpad, and Cy had to scramble to exit the aircar before she disappeared into the building without him.

Cy followed after them but paused at the threshold of the next room, unsure of what to do. It was set up much more like a relief center medical camp than a permanent facility, but he supposed that made sense. Boxes of medical supplies lined two of the walls. There was a single bacta tank, a large door with a security lock on another wall, and a few medical beds and a door marked ‘O.R.’ on the far side of the room. That was where the medical team seemed to be headed with Khlora.

A petite Zeltron woman stepped in front of him. “You’re with her, correct?”

Cy nodded, still feeling lost as he watched the medical team bustle around Khlora’s unconscious form.

“Her father?”

“More or less,” a lump rose in Cy’s throat. The woman gave him a funny look, evidently not satisfied with his answer.

“Her uncle,” he lied, following the falsified identification documents that Dex had given them. “No blood relation, but I raised her.” His voice broke over the last words.

The Zeltron woman’s face softened a little. “I know this must be hard for you,” she said, “but she’s in good hands now. Can you give us her relevant medical history?”

Right. All of Khlora’s medical records were of course in the Halls of Healing in the Jedi Temple. There was no way to access them now, but it had been common practice for the healers to send copies of their more critical files on the Padawan to the Master at the start of their apprenticeship, as well as any additional files the Padawan consented to have sent along afterwards.

Khlora’s file had been large. There were complications in her birth. While Human and Zabrak physiology was similar enough to usually produce viable offspring as long as the mother was Zabraki, the secondary Zabrak heart often posed a problem to the children of these unions. For the wealthy of the galaxy, there was prenatal bioengineering available to ensure that the child was born healthy, but Khlora’s birth parents had evidently not fallen into that category, and were forced to take their chances without it.

So, Khlora had been born with a weak subsidiary heart. She had spent the first few years of her life taking frequent trips to the Halls of Healing for checkups before it was eventually decided that it would be best to outright replace it with a new one grown from the cells of her healthy primary heart. Even in the center of the galaxy that was a risky procedure, but fortunately all had gone well and she had been back on her feet as a rambunctious youngling within a few months.

Cy filled in as much as he could remember about that procedure, and the other questions on the datapad with all that he could remember from reading through Khlora’s files. Allergens. Past significant injuries. Blood type. He handed the pad back and the woman hit a few buttons, likely to distribute the information to her medical team. She smiled over at Cy.

“The surgeons will be able to begin in a few minutes. This may not be the most well-funded medcenter on Coruscant, but we have some of the best doctors.”  
Cy looked at her quizzically.

“Many of us worked at Republic medcenters, closer to the surface” she explained, “but now the Empire has put in regulations that make it damn near impossible to work at one of their medcenters unless you’re human.”

That registered with Cy, but he felt numb more than anything else, looking at Khlora’s limp body being fussed over on the medical bed.

“There are many out there like you that need to avoid the government-influenced medical centers,” the Zeltron continued. “When someone needs medical care outside of the Imperial hospitals, we can treat them here.” She reached out and squeezed Cy’s arm. “No questions asked.”

Cy nodded mutely as another medic motioned to her from across the room. They appeared to be finished preparing Khlora for surgery. A Mirilan man and a Human woman appeared in the doorway, and motioned for Khlora to be brought into the smaller room. 

-

The surgery was long, and Cy found himself pacing anxiously, wondering if he should have revealed that he was a Jedi to the medical team. If he would have been able to provide _anything_ to them, even if he was not skilled as a healer. 

Again, he wished desperately for Raen.

His lips quirked slightly, knowing that if Raen was there they would tell him to stop worrying about things that were outside of his control. Cy sat himself down on a nearby box and forced himself to let his anxieties go. When Khlora was out of surgery he could subtly lend her strength through the Force while she floated in a bacta tank, but for that he needed to regain his center.

Choosing to focus on something else, his thoughts drifted to the first time he had met her, thirteen years ago. She had been injured then too, but far less severely.

\- 

_Cy had sensed a youngling’s presence for quite a while now._ She had been moving around the area, and had come to a stop near him. He sensed that she was looking for something, or someone, but seemed too afraid to interrupt his meditation to ask for help.

“If you have a question you should simply ask, youngling,” he said, shifting from a cross-legged position to sitting back on his heels. He opened his eyes to look at her. She was a very small Zabrak girl, with one arm in a cast. Probably around five or six standard years.

“I was just wondering where one of the other Masters was. I don’t know his name, but I think he meditates here a lot.”

That was strange, he thought. She was far too young to be a Padawan, although she hadn’t said that it was her Master, just a Master. He wasn’t sure which one it would be though. Many Jedi who were more oriented towards the Living Force found the area to be a very conductive place to meditate. She had said ‘his’ name, so that cut the list down considerably; but there were still several possibilities.

Seeming to guess what he was thinking, the girl said, “He was human, and very tall. He had hair a bit longer than yours, and a bit lighter. Part of it was tied back sort of like yours too. Like a lot of people, I guess.”

Cy smiled. He was beginning to have a good idea of who it was. “I think I know who you’re talking about. He has a rather deep voice, yes?”

“Yes!”

“That’s Master Qui-Gon. He’s away on a mission with his Padawan to Naboo right now. He should be back within a few days though. What did you need of him?”

The girl looked down and scuffed her feet on the ground nervously. “I was climbing a rock and I fell. He found me and brought me to the Halls of Healing.”

Cy’s smile grew. “Yes, that certainly sounds like him. The medcenter was probably just happy to see him there for reasons other than his own Padawan’s injuries.”

The girl looked puzzled by that comment. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

“I’m sure he’d tell you that you are very welcome. He would probably like to see you too, now that you’re feeling better. When he returns I’ll send him a comm that you were looking for him. What’s your name, youngling?”

“Khlora. I’m Khlora Thaddeus.”

“It’s nice to meet you Khlora, I’m Master Artemus.”

Khlora never did get a chance to thank Master Qui-Gon, but after that meeting she and Cy continued to happen upon each other. Cy had never had a Padawan before, so it was a new experience for him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like younglings, he had just never felt entirely comfortable with his skills as a teacher. He had really taken a liking to Khlora however, and she certainly enjoyed his company as well. The hours that her youngling clan was brought to the Room of A Thousand Fountains for recreation coincided with the hour that he usually spent there meditating. Now that she knew where to find him, his meditation sessions were often interrupted by the pitter patter of tiny feet as she scampered down the path to show him what new skill she had learned with the Force that day.

He didn’t mind.

A few years passed, and their bond continued to grow. Cy picked Iridonian Zabrak as his next language to learn. He had always found the arts and languages of that planet fascinating, and if he were to eventually have Khlora as his Padawan, he would be a better teacher if he learned more about it.

Learning about the cultural heritage of one’s species was considered very important for a Jedi. Masters Koth, Kolar, and the other Zabraks rounded up all the Zabraki younglings and padawans at least once a week for lessons on their homeworld’s language and culture. At one point, an elite theater troupe from Iridonia came to the Coruscant Opera House to perform some of the most famous classic Iridonian works, and Master Koth decided that going would be an important cultural experience. 

The day before the performance, one of the Zabraki knights was unexpectedly called away on a mission. Down an adult to help corral the younglings and padawans, the spare ticket was eventually offered to Cy. 

Master Koth knew of Cy’s fondness for both the theater arts...and a particular Zabrak youngling.

The performance was phenomenal, and all of the younger members of the Temple were thankfully well behaved. The group even visited a traditional Iridonian restaurant afterwards, at the suggestion of Master Kolar.

Exhausted from being out far later than their usual bedtime, and now full of wonderful and spicy food, the younglings had begun to fall asleep on the transport back to the Temple, even as the padawans were still rambunctious, and, well- loud. Little Khlora had curled up on the bench seat next to Cy, burrowed halfway into his outer robe, and promptly fell asleep. Master Koth had smiled at the sight of them.

“You two will make a good team one day,” he’d said. Cy had smiled at the thought too.

A few minutes later, Cy had noticed that while fast asleep, Khlora had begun to drool on the sleeve of his robe.

He didn’t mind. 

Much. 

Three more years passed, and shortly before her twelfth birthday, Cy went to formally ask Master Yoda permission to take Khlora Thaddeus as his Padawan Learner. When he’d knocked on the door to Yoda’s private chamber, a wizened voice had called out a single word.

“Yes.”

Taking it as permission to enter, Cy had pushed the button to open the door, and stepped over the threshold. Master Yoda was seated on a cushion on the floor. Cy had bowed respectfully and sat on the cushion opposite to the Grand Master.

“Master Yoda, I am here to request your permission to take Khlora-”

Yoda cut him off. “As your Padawan. My answer, I gave you while still outside you were. Yes, I said. About time, it is. See you both at tomorrow’s council meeting I will.

“Now go,” he said, poking at Cy with his gimer stick as he grinned toothily, “Find your Padawan, you should.”

Cy rose from the cushion. Yoda prodded harder at Cy’s boot with his stick.

“Go,” he repeated, cackling gleefully, “Wasted enough time you have already! Much to learn have you both!”

“Thank you Master,” Cy said, bowing once again. As he had exited the room, he could still hear Master Yoda laughing behind him.

And he didn’t mind at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Masrech got what was coming to him. I regret nothing, and neither does Cy lol.
> 
> As always, thank you so much to my beta/editor @thecrowmaiden, I couldn't do this without her.
> 
> Check out @starwarsumbra on Tumblr for art and other updates! There's going to be a couple of awesome illustrations from this chapter posted there in the future.
> 
> Please leave a comment on your way out. I like to know that people are still reading this lol. <3


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